Easter: Myth, Hallucination, or History?
words of truth
EDWIN M. YAMAUCHI
That the Easter faith in the Resurrection of Christ is the core of
Christianity can hardly be denied. Whether that conviction is rooted in
myth, in hallucination, or in history has often been debated. Some have
maintained that the Resurrection of Christ is a myth patterned after
the prototypes of dying and rising fertility gods. Others argue that
subjective visions of the risen Christ were sufficient to convince the
disciples that their leader was not dead. Even those who do not doubt
the historicity of Christ's life and death differ as to how the
Resurrection may be viewed historically. Let us examine the evidences
for these alternatives.
Easter as Myth
A. Dying and Rising Fertility Gods
John H. Randall, emeritus professor of philosophy at Columbia
University, has asserted: "Christianity, at the hands of Paul, became a
mystical system of redemption, much like the cult of Isis, and the
other sacramental or mystery religions of the day" (Hellenistic Ways of
Deliverance and the Making of the Christian Synthesis, 1970, p. 154).
Hugh Schonfield in Those Incredible Christians (1968, p. xii) has
declared: "The revelations of Frazer in The Golden Bough had not got
through to the masses.... Christians remained related under the skin to
the devotees of Adonis and Osiris, Dionysus and Mithras."
The theory that there was a widespread worship of a dying and rising
fertility god-Tammuz in Mesopotamia, Adonis in Syria, Attis in Asia
Minor, and Osiris in Egypt-was propounded by Sir James Frazer, who
gathered a mass of parallels in part IV of his monumental work The
Golden Bough ( 1906, reprinted in 1961). This view has been adopted by
many who little realize its fragile foundations. The explanation of the
Christian Resurrection by such a comparative-religions approach has
even been reflected in official Soviet propaganda (cf. Paul de Surgy,
editor, The Resurrection and Modern Biblical Thought, 1966, pp. 1,
131).
In the 1930s three influential French scholars, M. Goguel, C.
Guignebert, and A. Loisy, interpreted Christianity as a syncretistic
religion formed under the influence of Hellenistic mystery religions.
According to A. Loisy ("The Christian Mystery," Hibbert Journal, X
[1911-12], 51), Christ was "a saviour-god, after the manner of an
Osiris, an Attis, a Mithra.... Like Adonis, Osiris, and Attis he had
died a violent death, and like them he had returned to life...."
B. Reexamination of the Evidences
A reexamination of the sources used to support the theory of a mythical
origin of Christ's resurrection reveals that the evidences are far from
satisfactory and that the parallels are too superficial.
In the case of the Mesopotamian Tammuz (Sumerian Dumuzi), his alleged
resurrection by the goddess Inanna-Ishtar had been assumed even though
the end of both the Sumerian and the Akkadian texts of the myth of "The
Descent of Inanna (Ishtar)" had not been preserved. Professor S. N.
Kramer in 1960 published a new poem, "The Death of Dumuzi," that proves
conclusively that instead of rescuing Dumuzi from the Underworld,
Inanna sent him there as her substitute (cf. my article, "Tammuz and
the Bible," Journal of Biblical Literature, LXXXIV [1965], 283-90). A
line in a fragmentary and obscure text is the only positive evidence
that after being sent to the Underworld Dumuzi may have had his sister
take his place for half the year (cf. S. N. Kramer, Bulletin of the
American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 183 [1966], 31).
Tammuz was identified by later writers with the Phoenician Adonis, the
beautiful youth beloved of Aphrodite. According to Jerome, Hadrian
desecrated the cave in Bethlehem associated with Jesus' birth by
consecrating it with a shrine of Tammuz-Adonis. Although his cult
spread from Byblos to the GrecoRoman world, the worship of Adonis was
never important and was restricted to women. P. Lambrechts has shown
that there is no trace of a resurrection in the early texts or
pictorial representations of Adonis; the four texts that speak of his
resurrection are quite late, dating from the second to the fourth
centuries A.D. ("La 'resurrection' d'Adonis," in Melanges Isidore Levy,
1955, pp. 207-40). Lambrechts has also shown that Attis, the consort of
Cybele, does not appear as a "resurrected" god until after A.D. 1 50. (
"Les Fetes 'phrygiennes' de Cybele et d' Attis," Bulletin de l'lnstitut
Historique Belge de Rome, XXVII 11952], 141-70).
This leaves us with the figure of Osiris as the only god for whom there
is clear and early evidence of a "resurrection." Our most complete
version of the myth of his death and dismemberment by Seth and his
twofold resuscitation by Isis is to be found in Plutarch, who wrote in
the second century A.D. (cf. J. Gwyn Griffiths, Plutarch's De Iside et
Osiride, 1970). His account seems to accord with statements made in the
early Egyptian texts. After the New Kingdom (from 1570 B.C.. on) even
ordinary men aspired to identification with Osiris as one who had
triumphed over death.
But it is a cardinal misconception to equate the Egyptian view of the
afterlife with the "resurrection" of Hebrew-Christian traditions. In
order to achieve immortality the Egyptian had to fulfill three
conditions: (1) His body had to be preserved, hence mummification. (2)
Nourishment had to be provided either by the actual offering of daily
bread and beer, or by the magical depiction of food on the walls of the
tomb. (3) Magical spells had to be interred with the dead-Pyramid Texts
in the Old Kingdom, Coffin Texts in the Middle Kingdom, and the Book of
the Dead in the New Kingdom. Moreover, the Egyptian did not rise from
the dead; separate entities of his personality such as his Ba and his
Ka continued to hover about his body.
Nor is Osiris, who is alwaysportrayed in a mummified form, an
inspiration for the resurrected Christ. As Roland de Vaux has observed:
What is meant of Osiris being "raised to life"? Simply that, thanks to
the ministrations of Isis, he is able to lead a life beyond the tomb
which is an almost perfect replica of earthly existence. But he will
never again come among the living and will reign only over the dead....
This revived god is in reality a "mummy" god [The Bible and the Ancient
Near East, 1971, p. 236].
C. Inexact Parallels From Late Sources
What should be evident is that past studies of phenomenological
comparisons have inexcusably disregarded the dates and the provenience
of their sources when they have attempted to provide prototypes for
Christianity. Let me give two examples, Mithra and the taurobolium.
Mithra was the Persian god whose worship became popular among Roman
soldiers (his cult was restricted to men) and was to prove a rival to
Christianity in the late Roman Empire. Early Zoroastrian texts, such as
the Mithra Yasht, cannot serve as the basis of a mystery of Mithra
inasmuch as they present a god who watches over cattle and the sanctity
of contracts. Later Mithraic evidence in the west is primarily
iconographic; there are no long coherent texts.
Those who seek to adduce Mithra as a prototype of the risen Christ
ignore the late date for the expansion of Mithraism to the west (cf. M.
J. Vermaseren, Mithras, The Secret God, 1963, p. 76). The only dated
Mithraic inscriptions from the pre-Christian period are the texts of
Antiochus I of Commagene (69-34 B.C.) in eastern Asia Minor. After that
there is one text possibly from the first century A.D., from
Cappadocia, one from Phrygia dated to A.D. 77-78, and one from Rome
dated to Trajan's reign (A.D. 98-117). All other dated Mithraic
inscriptions and monuments belong to the second century (after A.D.
140), the third, and the fourth century A.D. (M. J. Vermaseren, Corpus
Inscriptionum et Monumentorum Religionis Mithriacae, 1956).
The taurobolium was a bloody rite associated with the worship of Mithra
and of Attis in which a bull was slaughtered on 'a grating over an
initiate in a pit below, drenching him with blood. This has been
suggested (e.g., by R. Reitzenstein) as the basis of the Christian's
redemption by blood and Paul's imagery in Romans 6 of the believer's
death and resurrection. Gunter Wagner in his exhaustive study Pauline
Baptism and thc Pagan Mysteries ( 1963) points out how anachronistic
such comparisons are:
The taurobolium in the Attis cult is first attested in the time of
Antoninus Pius for A.D. 160. As far as we can see at present it only
became a personal consecration at the beginning of the third century
A.D. The idea of a rebirth through the instrumentality of the
taurobolium only emerges in isolated instances towards the end of the
fourth century A.D.; it is not originally associated with this
blood-bath [p. 266].
Indeed, there is inscriptional evidence from the fourth century A.D.
that, far from influencing Christianity, those who used the taurobolium
were influenced by Christianity. Bruce Metzger in his important essay
"Methodology in the Study of the Mystery Religions and Early
Christianity" (Historical and Literary Studies: Pagan, Jewish and
Christian (1968), notes:
Thus, for example, one must doubtless interpret the change in the
efficacy attributed to the rite of the taurobolium. In competing with
Christianity, which promised eternal life to its adherents, the cult of
Cybele officially or unofficially raised the efficacy of the blood bath
from twenty years to eternity [p. 11].
Another aspect of comparisons between the resurrection of Christ and
the mythological mysteries is that the alleged parallels are quite
inexact. It is an error, for example, to believe that the initiation
into the mysteries of Isis, as described in Apuleius's The Golden Ass,
IS comparable to Christianity. For one thing, the hero, Lucius, had to
pay a fortune to undergo his initiation. And as Wagner correctly
observes: "Isis does not promise the mystes immortality, but only that
henceforth he shall live under her protection, and that when at length
he goes down to the realm of the dead he shall adore her . . ." (op.
cit., p. 112).
On the other hand, the followers of Dionysus (Bacchus), the god of
wine, did believe in immortality. But they did not hope for a
resurrection of the body; nor did they base their faith on the reborn
Dionysus of the Orphics, but rather on their experience of drunken
ecstasy (cf. M. Nilsson, The Dionysiac Mysteries of the Hellenistic and
Roman Age, 1957).
In any case, the death and resurrection of these various mythological
figures, however attested, always typified the annual death and rebirth
of vegetation. This significance cannot be attributed to the death and
resurrection of Jesus. A. D. Nock sets forth the most striking contrast
between pagan and Christian notions of "resurrection" as follows:
In Christianity everything is made to turn on a dated experience of a
historical Person; it can be seen from I Cor. XV. 3 that the statement
of the story early assumed the form of a statement in a Creed. There is
nothing in the parallel cases which points to any attempt to give such
a basis of historical evidence to belief (Early Gentile Christianity
and Its Hellenistic Background, 1964, p. 107).
Easter as Hallucination
The Latin word that is the root of "hallucination" meant "to wander in
thought" or "to utter nonsense." The modern concept defines
"hallucinations" as "subjective experiences that are consequences of
mental processes, sometimes fulfilling a purpose in the individual's
mental life" ( W. Keup, editors Origin and Mechanisms of
Hallucinations, 1970, p. v).
David Strauss in his famous Life of Jesus (1835) suggested that the
recollection of Jesus' teachings in the clear air of Galilee produced
among some of the more emotional disciples hallucinations of Jesus
appearing to them. In a more positive vein, Theodor Keim in his work on
Jesus (1867-72) proposed that the basis of the Easter faith resulted
from God-given "telegrams from heaven."
Hallucinations do play a major role in religious cultures, but they are
induced either by drugs or by the extreme deprivation of food, drink,
and sleep (cf. E. Bourguignon, "Hallucination and Trance: An
Anthropologist's Perspective," in Keup, p. 188). These factors were not
present in the various appearances of the risen Christ to his
disciples.
The details of the varied epiphanies of Christ, which in several cases
were to more than one individual and on one occasion to more than 500,
are not typical of hallucinations. A visual hallucination is a private
event; it is by definition the perception of objects or patterns of
light that are not objectively present (ibid., p. ] 81 ) . The variety
of conditions under which Christ appeared also militate against
hallucination. The appearances to Mary Magdalene, to Cleopas, to the
disciples on the shore of Galilee, to Paul on the road to Damascus, all
l differ in their circumstances. C. S. Lewis suggests:
And any theory of hallucination breaks down on the fact (and if it is
invention it is the oddest invention that ever entered the mind of man
) that on three separate occasions this hallucination was not
immediately recognized as Jesus (Luke xxiv. 13- 31; John xx. 15, xxi.
4) [Miracles, 1947, p. 1531.
Hugh Schonfield in The Passover Plot (1966) concedes: "We are not
dealing in the Gospels with hallucinations, with psychic phenomena or
survival in the Spiritualist sense" (p. 159). He further remarks: "What
emerges from the records is that various disciples did see somebody, a
real living person. Their experiences were not subjective" (p. 173).
Finally, what rules out the theory of hallucinations l is the fact that
the disciples were thoroughly dejected | at the death of Christ and
were not, despite Christ's l predictions, expecting a resurrection of
their leader. l H. E. W. Turner remarks:
The disciples to whom they [the women] finally report do not believe
for joy. There is here no avid clutching at any straw. Something quite
unexpected had happened, rather than something longed for having failed
to occur [Jesus, Master and Lord, 1960, p. 368].
Easter as History
A. An Existential Concept?
It has become common in circles that find the supernatural aspects of
the Resurrection incredible to place an existential interpretation on
the Easter event. According to Bultmann's thinking, "Jesus ist
auferstanden ins Kerygma"-Jesus arose in the faith and the preaching of
the disciples. For Emil Brunner the Resurrection is not an event that
"can be fitted into the succession of historical events"; it is a fact
only if it has taken place "for us." Karl Barth is more positive though
still ambiguous in affirming that the Resurrection is a real event
though inaccessible to historical investigation. Barth denies any
connection between the appearances of Christ listed in First
Corinthians 15 and the Resurrection, for if these should be brought
within the context of history, the Resurrection "must share in its
obscurity and error and essential questionableness."
In a conference held at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Professor
Samuel Sandmel of Hebrew Union College made the following suggestion to
Christians:
I think, if I understand right, the issue about the resurrection which
has preoccupied us this afternoon stems from the fact that what was
once readily credible is in our environment not credible.... If I were
a Christian, I think I would not be dismayed by the idea of
resurrection. I think I would [find simple prose] that would say: Here
is a message that has to do with man's potential perfection.... I would
not let this array of values suffer because one element--in view of the
present environment--has to be interpreted allegorically or be divested
of its pristine meaning and given a different meaning. The world too
badly needs Christianity at its best [D. G. Miller and D. Y. Hadidian,
editors, Jesus and Man's Hope, 1971, p. 324].
B. A Historical Question?
It is certainly not to be denied that there must be a personal decision
for the Resurrection to be meaningful to us as individuals, and that
the Resurrection of Christ transcends ordinary history in its
significance. But what is at issue is whether the Resurrection of
Christ is rooted in history as an objective event or is simply a
creation of the subjective faith of the disciples.
Some demur that to make the Resurrection a question of historical
research would be to assume that God's ways are open to our
observation. But is not this indeed a distinctive feature of God's
revelation as recorded in both the Old and the New Testament? Others
object that since historical judgments can never achieve absolute
certainty, they should not be the basis of our faith.
To this fallacious argument Peter Carnley replies:
The important thing is that it is not legitimate to argue that faith
cannot be based on any historical judgments or must be totally
independent of historical research and autonomous, because no
historical judgment is ever justifiably claimed with certainty [S. W.
Sykes and J. P. Clayton, editors, Christ, Faith and History, 1972, p.
189].
That is, historians deal not in certainties but in probabilities, but
this does not render historical investigation without value for the
question of the Resurrection. In his presidential address to the
American Historical Association, Kenneth Scott Latourette concluded
with these words:
The historian, be he Christian or non-Christian, may not know whether
God will fully triumph within history. He cannot conclusively
demonstrate the validity of the Christian understanding of history. Yet
he can establish a strong probability for the dependability of its
insights ["The Christian Understanding of History," The American
Historical Review LIV (1949), 276].
As J. C. O'Neill has argued:
It will immediately be clear that in asserting that the resurrection is
an historical question I have not been asserting that an historian as
historian can establish that Jesus rose from the dead. The historian in
this case can only show whether or not the evidence makes it at all
plausible to assert that Jesus rose from the dead [Sykes and Clayton,
op. cit., p. 217].
C. Ancient Concepts of the Afterlife
If the Resurrection of Christ can be investigated as a historical
question, one may inquire about the ancient concepts of the afterlife
at the time of Jesus and ask whether the Resurrection of Christ was a
doctrine that arose from contemporary beliefs.
The ancient Mesopotamians had a pessimistic view of the afterlife,
which they conceived as a gloomy, shadowy existence. Gilgamesh sought
in vain the secret of immortality. When Ishtar tells the gatekeeper of
the Underworld "I will raise up the dead," she utters this as a threat
"so that the dead will outnumber the living" -a calamity and not a
hope! (cf. S. N. Kramer, "Death and Nether World according to the
Sumerian Literary Texts," Iraq, XXII [19601. 59-68; H. W. F. Saggs,
"Some Ancient Semitic Conceptions of the Afterlife," Faith and Thought,
XC [1958], 157-82).
The Egyptians, as noted in our discussion of Osiris above, did have a
more optimistic view of their afterlife. But to call the survival of
the Ba and Ka, hovering over the mummified body, a "resurrection" is to
obscure. the essential differences in concepts.
The ancient Greek attitude was an essentially tragic outlook. Epitaphs
reflect an almost universal pessimism about life beyond the grave.
Achilles in Hades says he would rather be a landless peasant on earth
than king of the Underworld. After Homer's time a hope for a blissful
existence in the Elysian Fields was held out, but only for heroes (cf.
Lewis R. Farnell, Greek Hero Cults and Ideas of ImmortalitY, 1921).
In the classical period the immortality of the soul was stressed in
opposition to the body, which was described by the Orphics as soma
sema, "the body a tomb." Plato in The Phaedo taught that the body is
the chief hindrance to wisdom and truth.
In the Hellenistic age the Greek philosophers varied in their views on
immortality but agreed on the undesirability of reviving the body. The
Stoics, who were pantheists, believed that souls left the body to
ascend to the celestial regions of the moon before being absorbed in
the All. A Stoic epitaph reads: "The ashes have my body; the sacred air
has borne away my soul" (cf. Franz Cumont. After Life in Roman
Paganism, 1922, reprinted 1959, p. 15). Seneca, the Stoic tutor of Nero
and Paul's contemporary, spoke of "the detestable habitation of the
body, and vain flesh in which the soul is imprisoned."
Epicurus, whose philosophy was based upon the atomistic cosmology of
Democritus, taught that at death the atoms of the body simply
disintegrated. There was no immortality but instead freedom from the
terrors of the Beyond. The Epicurean indifference to the afterlife is
reflected in such epitaphs as: Non fui, fui, non sum, non curo, "T was
not, T was, I am not, I do not care," and Es, bibe, lude, veni, "Eat,
drink, play, come hither" -(cf. I Cor. 15:32). It is therefore not
surprising that the Stoics and the Epicureans at the Areopagus in
Athens disdainfully dismissed Paul when he began to preach to them the
Resurrection (Acts 17:31, 32). According to Robert Grant ("The
Resurrection of the Body," Journal of Religion, XXVIII [1948], 189):
"In educated circles only the soul of man is valued. For those who took
this standpoint as axiomatic, fulfillment of the Christian hope was
impossible and in any event undesirable."
That the concept of bodily resurrection was just as difficult to accept
at the dawn of Christianity as it is for some today-for different
reasons, to be sure-is shown by the reaction of pagan critics and of
the Gnostics. The raising of a corpse was ridiculed as a shameful act
by Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian. Gnostic teachers such as Valentinus
taught a Docetic view that the "resurrection" involved only the
noncorporal elements of personality (cf. Malcolm Peel, The Epistle to
Rheginos: A Valentinian Letter on the Resurrection, 1969).
If the early apostles of the Gospel had altered their teaching of the
resurrection to make their message more palatable to their
contemporaries, as we are sometimes advised to do, there would have
been no historic continuity of Christianity but only shifting patterns
battered to and fro by every passing intellectual fashion.
D. Jewish Concepts of the Resurrection
As is well known, faith in the resurrection of the dead rose but
intermittently and gradually in the Hebrew consciousness, culminating
in the declaration of Daniel 12:2 (cf. R. Martin-Achard, From Death to
Life, 1960; G. Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life
in Intertestamental Judaism, 1972). On the basis of Ugaritic
lexicography M. Dahood claims that there are more references to the
resurrection in the Psalms than we had realized (cf. Elmer B. Smick,
"Ugaritic and the Theology of the Psalms," J. B. Payne, editor, New
Perspectives on the Old Testament, 1970, pp. 104-16.
Faith in the resurrection, generally for the righteous alone, is
clearly expressed in some of the Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphical books
such as Second Maccabees. Second Baruch, and Fourth Ezra, but is not
mentioned in Jubilees or the Book of Enoch. Philo in his Legum
Allegoria (JII, 69) holds that the body "is wicked and a plotter
against the soul, and is even a corpse and a dead thing."
According to the Pharisaic Mishnah, Sanhedrin X, 1:
All Israelites have a share in the world to come.... And these are they
that have no share in the world to come: he that says there is no
resurrection of the dead prescribed in the Law, and [he that says] that
the Law is not from Heaven, and an Epicurean.
The Sadduccees, on the other hand, rejected the resurrection-a division
of views that Paul exploited in his trial before the Sanhedrin (Acts
23:6).
Despite the rash claims of a few writers that the leader of the Qumran
community was believed to have risen from the dead (cf. my article,
"The Teacher of Righteousness From Qumran and Jesus of Nazareth,"
CHRISTIANITY TODAY, X [May 13, 1966], 12-14), it is not at all certain
whether the Dead Sea Scrolls affirm, a faith in the resurrection. John
Pryke comments: "The bliss of the elect as described in the Manual is
much nearer to the 'immortality of the soul' than to the 'resurrection
of the flesh' " ("Eschatology in the Dead Sea Scrolls," in W. F.
Albright et al., The Scrolls and Christianity, 1969, p. 57). Matthew
Black also notes: "It is surprising that no unambiguously clear
evidence has so far been produced for any belief by the Qumran sect in
the resurrection or in resurrection" ("The Dead Sea Scrolls and
Christian Origins," ibid., p. 106).
Though there were scattered indications in the Old Testament of a
germinating faith in the resurrection and though important segments of
Judaism did maintain this conviction, neither in the Old Testament nor
in contemporary Jewish tradition was there a belief in the resurrection
of the Messiah (cf. P. Grelot, "The Resurrection of Jesus," in P. de
Surgy, op. cit., pp. 24, 136). As Merrill Tenney concludes:
The idea was not so essential a part of Jewish theology that it would
be read into the phenomena of the life of Jesus or arbitrarily
superimposed upon His teachings. His predictions of rising from the
dead and His interpretation of the Old Testament were original with
Him; they were not the echoes of current theology that He had absorbed
and repeated unthinkingly [The Reality of the Resurrection, 1963,
reprinted 1972, p. 28].
E. The Pauline Evidence
No one questions the centrality of Christ's Resurrection in Paul's
teaching (cf. D. M. Stanley, Christ's Resurrection in Pauline
Soteriology, 1961). Nor does anyone deny the genuineness of Paul's
First Letter to the Corinthians, written but 25 years after the
crucifixion of Christ. In First Corinthians 15: 1-8 Paul gives a list
of the appearances of the risen Christ to various believers including
himself. Moreover, Paul says he received this tradition in a manner
that indicates its great antiquity. According to M. Carrez:
Framed by these two words, gospel and kerygma, we find a text and a
tradition whose Aramaic tenor, archaic character, and primitive
catechetical form have been recently pointed out by B. Klappert.... The
appearance to Peter, confirmed by the allusion to Lk 24,34, and the
appearance to James . . . show the Jerusalamite character of this
tradition. What should we derive from it? That, in any case, this
formulation already existed in an established way six years after the
events of the redemptive drama at the latest. and that everything
concurs in underlining the great antiquity of this formulation ["The
Pauline Hermeneutics of the Resurrection," in F. de Surgy, op. cit., p.
40].
Of crucial significance is the fact that Paul can claim in First
Corinthians 15:6 that of the more than 500 disciples to whom Christ
appeared at the same time, most (hoi pleiones, not just "the greater
part" as in the King James Version) were still alive at the time Paul
wrote. As William Lillie, head of the Department of Biblical Study at
the University of Aberdeen, notes:
What gives a special authority to the list as historical evidence is
the reference to most of the five hundred . brethren being still alive.
St. Paul says in effect, "If you do not believe me, you can ask them."
Such a statement in an admittedly genuine letter written within thirty
years of the event is almost as strong evidence as one could hope to
get for something that happened nearly two thousand years ago ["The
Empty Tomb and the Resurrection," in D. E. Nineham et al. Historicity
and Chronology in the New Testament, 1965, p. 125].
F. The Evidence of the Gospels
The canonical Gospels were all written before the end of the first
century A.D. at the latest, and Mark may have been written as early as
A.D. 50. Although they differ in details, they concur on the basic
point: the two factors that together convinced the disciples that
Christ had risen were the empty tomb and the appearances of the risen
Christ on at least ten occasions. As C. H. Dodd has pointed out, the
gospel narratives are free from the legendary embellishments of later
apocryphal accounts. They simply recount the surprise of the empty tomb
and the gradual realization of its significance after encounters with
the risen Christ. The apocryphal Gospel of Peter is not content with
such artless narratives. It claims that the soldiers on guard beheld:
...three men come out from the sepulchre, and two of them sustaining
the other, and a cross following them, and the heads of the two
reaching to heaven, but that of him who was led of them by the hand
overpassing the heavens [E. Hennecke and W. Schneemelcher, New
Testament Apocrypha 1, 1963, p. 186].
One feature of the Resurrection narratives that indicates they were not
late inventions of the Church is the striking fact that the first
appearances of the risen Christ were not to the apostles but instead to
women. As C. F. D. Moule comments:
Further, it is difficult to explain how a story that grew up late and
took shape merely in accord with the supposed demands of apologetic
came to be framed in terms almost exclusively of women witnesses, who,
as such, were notoriously invalid witnesses according to Jewish
principles of evidence [C. F. D. Moule, editor, The Significance of the
Message of the Resurrection for Faith in Jesus Christ 1968, p. 9].
If one rejects the traditional interpretation of the empty tomb as
resulting from the Resurrection of Christ, one is obliged to supply a
better alternative. Such theories have been often discussed-e.g., Frank
Morrison, Who Moved the Stone? (1930, reprinted 1963); Daniel P.
Fuller, Easter Faith and History (1965). We may briefly summarize these
proposals and the objections to them.
Heinrich Paulus in his Life of Jesus (1828) suggested that Jesus was
not dead when he was taken from the cross. The coolness of the tomb
revived him. After exchanging his grave wrappings for the gardener's
clothes, Jesus spoke to his disciples for forty days and then walked
into a cloud on a mountain and went off somewhere to die. The
implausibility of this reconstruction was recognized by Strauss, who
wrote:
It is impossible that one who had just come forth from the grave half
dead, who crept about weak and ill, who stood in need of medical
treatment . . ., and who at last succumbed to suffering, could ever
have given to the disciples that impression that He was a conqueror
over death and the grave . . . [The Life of Jesus 1879 1, 412, cited by
Wilbur Smith, The Supernaturalness of Christ, 1940, p. 208].
A modern variation has been proposed by Schonfield in his celebrated
work The Passover Plot. Jesus plotted with Joseph of Arimathea,
Lazarus, a Judaean priest, and an anonymous "young man" to arrange a
feigned death on the cross by taking a drug. Schonfield seeks to
maintain that neither Jesus nor his accomplices were guilty of any
fraud. Yet the mysterious young man is mistaken for the risen Jesus on
the four occasions of the "appearances" admitted by Schonfield without
ever correcting the misapprehension of the disciples. We are asked to
believe that the skeptical disciples were confused by the appearance of
this young man into believing that Jesus had arisen, and that they were
so transformed by this confusion that they turned Jerusalem upside down
with their preaching (cf. my review in the Gordon Review, X [1967],
150-60; reprinted in the Journal of the American Scientific
Affiliation, XXI [1969], 27-32).
Kirsopp Lake in The Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus
(1907) emended Mark 16:6 so that it read: "He is not here, behold
(pointing to the right tomb) the place where they laid him." His
ingenious theory that the women saw an empty tomb but the wrong one
hardly explains their amazement and fear. Nor it is plausible in view
of the fact that Jesus was buried in the private garden of Joseph of
Arimathea, and that the women noted where he was buried (Mark 15:47).
J. Jeremias has demonstrated that about fifty tombs were venerated by
the Jews before the time of Jesus. In the view of such interest in the
tombs of holy men, J. Delorme asks:
In these circumstances, is it possible that the original community of
Jerusalem could have been completely uninterested in the tomb where
Jesus was laid after his death? . . . Can the existence of this
tradition at Jerusalem, centered around a specific place, in a
relatively short lapse of time after the events, be explained as a pure
legendary creation? Could one show an ordinary tomb as being the tomb
of Jesus? Can one question without foundation known persons, the women
designated by name and Joseph of Arimathea? ["The Resurrection and
Jesus' Tomb: Mark 16, 1-8 in the Gospel Tradition," in P. de Surgy, op.
cit., pp. 88, 101].
If the tomb where Jesus was laid was indeed empty, could his body have
been stolen away by someone? To assume that the body was stolen one
must first of all disregard the story of the guard posted at the
sepulchre (Matt. 28:65, 66) . We need then to ask, Who would have
stolen the body and why? The Romans had no reason to do so; they had
surrendered the body to Joseph of Arimathea. It is illogical to suppose
that the Jews stole the body, since they could easily have suppressed
the nascent Christian movement and exposed the Christians' claim of
Christ's Resurrection by simply producing his body.
Hermann Reimarus, whose works were published posthumously by Gotthold
Lessing in the eighteenth century, did suggest that it was the
Christians who removed the body and hid it somewhere. But this is
psychologically incredible since the disciples would not only be
perpetrating a fraud but also be dying for a deliberate deception. The
neatly deposited graveclothes and napkin observed by Peter and John
(John 20:7) are evidence against tomb robbery by ordinary thieves, as
they would not have taken the time to tidy up the sepulchre.
G. The Impact of the Resurrection
Not even the most skeptical can deny the historical attestation of the
faith of the early Christians in the Resurrection of Christ. This
simple fact is of importance if we accept as genuine the numerous
predictions of Jesus concerning his death and resurrection (Matt.
16:21; 17:9, 22,23; 20:18, 19; 26:2; etc.). Charlatans such as Theudas
(Josephus, Antiquities XX. 5.1), who claimed to have the power to
divide the Jordan River, or the Gnostic Menander, who claimed his
disciples would remain ageless, were quickly exposed by the failure of
their claims. The Qumran community, which has some features in common
with the Christian community, did not survive the destruction of its
monastery by the Romans in A.D. 68 because the people had no comparable
faith to sustain them.
Something earth-shaking must have transformed the despairing disciples.
A. M. Ramsey (The Resurrection of Christ, 1946) reminds us: "It must
not be forgotten that the teaching and ministry of Jesus did not
provide the disciples with a Gospel, and led them from puzzle to
paradox until the Resurrection gave them a key" (p. 40).
It should be obvious that the early Christians were completely
convinced of the Resurrection. If this were not so, they had everything
to lose and nothing to gain. By preaching the Resurrection of Christ
they further antagonized the Jewish authorities and in effect accused
them of slaying the Messiah (Acts 2:23,24, 36; 3:14, 15, 4:10; etc.).
As H. C. Cadbury notes:
The effect of the belief in Jesus' resurrection on the early Christian
belief in the wider resurrection experience can hardly be
overestimated. It was the kind of assurance, contemporary and concrete,
that the most ardent though speculative convictions of Pharisees or
other non-Christian Jews could not have equaled ["Intimations of
Immortality in the Thought of Jesus," in T. T. Ramsey et al., The
Miracles and the Resurrection, 1964, p. 84].
Professor Lillie concludes:
The followers of a religious group do not preserve traditions of their
leaders forsaking their master and behaving in a cowardly and
despairing fashion unless these traditions happen to be true. The fact
that the Gospel was boldly and successfully preached by these same
followers is attested not only by the New Testament record, but by the
historical fact of the growth of the Christian Church. It is indeed one
of the few New Testament facts for which we have independent evidence
outside the Christians' own traditions. The Roman historian Tacitus
(Annals XV. 44) states that "a most mischievous superstition thus
checked for the moment (by the crucifixion of Jesus) again broke out"
[in D. E. Nineham et al., op. cit.].
I would argue that only the appearance of the risen Christ can
satisfactorily explain how Jesus' skeptical brother James (John 7:5)
became a leader in the early Church (I Cor. 15:7; Acts 15), how
despondent Peter became a fearless preacher at Pentecost, and how a
fanatical persecutor of Christians became Paul, the greatest missionary
of the Gospel.
A Concluding Challenge
I have tried to show that theories attributing the Resurrection of
Christ to the borrowing of mythological themes, to hallucinations, or
to alternative explanations of the empty tomb are improbable and are
also inadequate to explain the genesis and growth of Christianity. To
be sure, the Resurrection of Jesus is unprecedented, but Jesus himself
is sui generis, unique. As Tenney remarks, "Although the resurrection
was without precedent. it was not abnormal for Christ.... He rose from
the dead because it was the logical and normal prerogative of the Son
of God" (op. Cit., p. 133).
The historical question of the Resurrection of Christ differs from
other historical problems in that it poses a challenge to every
individual. Christ said (John 11:25): "I am the resurrection and the
life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live."
For the Resurrection of Christ to be more than a beautiful Easter
story, each person needs to believe in his heart that God has raised
Christ from the dead and to confess with his mouth Jesus as Lord.
Edwin M. Yamauchi is a professor of history at Miami University,
Oxford, Ohio.
http://www.leaderu.com/everystudent/easter/articles/yama.html
bernard...@yahoo.co.uk
The Feasts of Christmas and Easter are much older than Christianity.
One of the earlist scientific calculations was the length of the year.
It was important so as to plant crops correstly. The early calculations
were only approximate but Christmas clearly came when the Sun was
rising again. So, it became a day of great feasting. The Christians
hi-jacked the day as the Birthday of Christ but never suceeded in
changing its character as a festival of the Sun when people would eat,
drink and make merry while lighting fires to help the Sun to keep
climbing and also to keep themselves warm for a brief period within the
chill of winter.
By February, food-stocks were low, so rationing was introduced until
crops began to grow again. Hence Lent and the Festival of Easter which
celebrates the return of crop-growth. The Easter egg symbolises the
continuation of life. Hence Christians hi-jacked Easter as the date of
the alleged Resurrection of Jesus.
B C.
JCarew
<bernard...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote
>snip<
>
>The Feasts of Christmas and Easter are much
>older than Christianity. One of the earlist
>scientific calculations was the length of the year.
> It was important so as to plant crops correstly.
>The early calculations were only approximate
>but Christmas clearly came when the Sun was
>rising again.
How we got the Date for Christmas
The designation of December 25th for Christmas
(Christ's Mass in Anglo Saxon, in Old English the
Mass of Christ) was done by Pope(Saint) Julius I
in the 4th century AD
From the "Christmas History" Website(see below)
Actually, Christmas was a movable feast and
was celebrated many different times during
the year. Not until Pope Julius I in the 4th
century AD choose December 25th because it
coincided with the pagan rituals of Winter
Solstice or "Return of the Sun". The purpose
was to replace the pagan celebration with the
Christian one.
11 days were dropped from the year in 1752, when
we switched from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian
Calendar(see note,jc). The date, December 25th
was effectively moved backwards by 11 days. Some
Christian Church Sects, called the "Calendarists",
still celebrate Christmas on January 7th (previously
December 25th of the Julian calendar).
From the Inglewood Care Centre(a non-Catholic
source,btw) Website at:
http://www.inglewoodcarecentre.com/history/christmas_history.htm
Note: The "Gregorian Calendar"(the Calander we
use today in the US) was put into effect by a
decree of Pope Gregory XIII(hence the name
"Gregorian Calendar")in 1582 the change was not
accepted by the English Protestants until the
year 1752 which is where they get the year
they use above.
Jim Carew sfo
Soul food
>
>
>That the Easter faith in the Resurrection of Christ is the core of
>Christianity can hardly be denied.
That's why it's a death cult.
------------------------------------------------
"The real dichotomy in today's world is between reason and religion.
The future of civilisation rests upon how many people realise that and do something about it."
D Silverman FLAHN, SMLAHN
AA #2208
Mark K. Bilbo
truth" <wordsof...@lycos.com> wrote:
> Easter: Myth, Hallucination, or History?
You forgot "pagan." I do love watching you folks celebrate a pagan goddess...
(As in: Eostre the pagan Anglo-Saxon goddess)
--
Mark K. Bilbo
--------------------------------------------------
"We're angry, Mr. President, and we'll be angry long
after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have
been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing.
Many who could have been were not. That's to the
government's shame."
raven1
<wordsof...@lycos.com> wrote:
>Easter: Myth
Trimmed for brevity.
---
"This is how liberty dies: with thunderous applause"
- Padme Amidala, Episode III
raven1
<wordsof...@lycos.com> wrote:
>Easter: Myth, Hallucination, or History?
Please lay out a non-contradictory account of the Resurrection, using
all the details from all four Gospels, and then we'll talk. Until
then, "myth" gets my vote.
Pastor Dave
<oth...@prodigy.net> spake thusly:
> JMJ
>
><bernard...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote
>
>>snip<
>>
>>The Feasts of Christmas and Easter are much
>>older than Christianity. One of the earlist
>>scientific calculations was the length of the year.
>> It was important so as to plant crops correstly.
>>The early calculations were only approximate
>>but Christmas clearly came when the Sun was
>>rising again.
>
>How we got the Date for Christmas
From pagan worship.
--
Pastor Dave
1st Century Church of Christ
"There is therefore now no condemnation
to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk
not according to the flesh but according
to the Spirit." - Romans 8:1
Llanzlan Klazmon
news:1128399334.0...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
> Easter: Myth, Hallucination, or History?
>
As Mark pointed out Easter = Eastre the pagan mother goddess of the saxons.
The christian easter is a combination of the pagan celebration of the
vernal equinox (hence easter eggs) and the jewish passover with the
christian elements added. The date of easter sunday was set during pope
gregory's reign (of gregorian calendar fame). The formula was worked out by
the mathematician/astronomer clavius and set the date of Easter Sunday as
being (more or less with a kludge or two thrown in) the first sunday
following the first full moon following the vernal equinox.
Klazmon.
Josef Balluch
In a message sent 'round the world, words of truth poured fuel on the
fire with the following:
> Easter: Myth, Hallucination, or History?
Yes, quite possibly, and hopefully soon.
Regards,
Josef
The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the
absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum.
-- Henry Havelock Ellis
Larry Heath
"Soul food" <cth...@soulstogo.com> wrote in message
news:11k4k1drb401t5u7b...@4ax.com...
> "words of truth" <wordsof...@lycos.com> shamelessly dissembled:
>
>>
>>
>>That the Easter faith in the Resurrection of Christ is the core of
>>Christianity can hardly be denied.
>
> That's why it's a death cult.
A plagiarized, cannibalistic, death cult. Shit, I mean they can't even come
up with something, new. Its simply a rehash of 5000 years of every myth and
cult going.
Later Larry
aa # 2216
Pastor Dave
<lgh...@comcast.net> spake thusly:
The foolishness of atheists never ceases to amaze me.
Easter was already celebrated at the time of the
resurrection as part of a pagan religion and it is even
mentioned in the New Testament. Thus, it is impossible
that Christians stole it in the first century.
The church later used this date. Pagans were being
converted into the church (we're jumping a century
forward now) and the church had trouble shaking the
pagan celebrations out of the people. Since the church
was interested in a high number of converts at that
time, they compromised with it, rather than combat it.
That is how the Easter celebration got mixed in.
You atheists think because you look at a couple of web
pages put up by people who hate God just like you do
and pat each other on the back for your "good insults"
that you throw at Christians, that it makes you
geniuses. The reality is, you're heads would probably
explode if you did any actual work in studying the
relevant issues. If you did manage to survive the
process though, you might also begin to be honest,
instead of lying so much. You know very well that a
Christian is someone who follows Christ and yet, you
have no problem dishonestly pointing your fingers at
things like the Inquisitions and claiming that
Christianity itself is evil, when you know very well,
that those are not actions that are Christian in
nature. But to admit that, would interfere with your
hate fest and so, we're not going to see honesty from
you people.
You idiots also claim that Christianity stole from
Mithraism. This is because you're too stupid to do
your homework and find out that Mithraism went through
major changes and did not exist in the form you morons
always quote in the area Christianity sprung up in,
until after Christianity was already spread in that
area. Thus, Mithraism copied from Christianity, not
the other way around. But you idiots try to back date
a later form of Mithraism. Why? Because the whole of
your "research" was to look at web pages put up by
other atheists, who did no more research than looking
at web pages put up by other atheists and so on and
so on.
Then you can find all of those supposed
"contradictions", even though I have refuted every
single one that anyone has ever thrown at me.
I even corrected one on your favorite web site for
this, just to see what they'd do. You know the one. Of
course you do. They took it down for a while.
Then they put it back up and removed the email link.
Yea, that's honesty in action. The problem is, you're
too stupid to research them for yourselves, to see if
these things are even quoted in context, or honestly.
Respond all you want now and attack me personally.
You'll be kill filed as soon as this is sent and any
other responses that make it through from you fools,
with have the sender kill filed as well.
And don't bother quoting Matthew 5:22, as I know those
like you, who are incapable of thought will do. That
passage applies to brothers. Atheists are not my
brothers and the passage that applies to you fools,
is Psalm 14:1.
Goodbye.
Colin Day
> In <1128399334.0...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, "words of
> truth" <wordsof...@lycos.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Easter: Myth, Hallucination, or History?
>
>
> You forgot "pagan." I do love watching you folks celebrate a pagan goddess...
>
> (As in: Eostre the pagan Anglo-Saxon goddess)
It wasn't named after Astarte? Now there's a goddess I could down on my
knees for! :-)
Colin Day aa #1500
Paul Duca
Paul
Martin Edwards
> On Tue, 4 Oct 2005 20:06:29 -0400, "Larry Heath"
> <lgh...@comcast.net> spake thusly:
>
>
>>"Soul food" <cth...@soulstogo.com> wrote in message
>>news:11k4k1drb401t5u7b...@4ax.com...
>>
>>>"words of truth" <wordsof...@lycos.com> shamelessly dissembled:
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>That the Easter faith in the Resurrection of Christ is the core of
>>>>Christianity can hardly be denied.
>>>
>>>That's why it's a death cult.
>>
>>A plagiarized, cannibalistic, death cult. Shit, I mean they can't even come
>>up with something, new. Its simply a rehash of 5000 years of every myth and
>>cult going.
>
>
> The foolishness of atheists never ceases to amaze me.
> Easter was already celebrated at the time of the
> resurrection as part of a pagan religion and it is even
> mentioned in the New Testament. Thus, it is impossible
> that Christians stole it in the first century.
>
practices were adopted. Again, where did you qualify as a pastor? You
should have learned that in your first year.
--
You can't fool me: there ain't no Sanity Clause - Chico Marx
Mark K. Bilbo
<1news-gr...@nospam-tampa-bay.rr.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 4 Oct 2005 20:06:29 -0400, "Larry Heath" <lgh...@comcast.net>
> spake thusly:
>
>
>>"Soul food" <cth...@soulstogo.com> wrote in message
>>news:11k4k1drb401t5u7b...@4ax.com...
>>> "words of truth" <wordsof...@lycos.com> shamelessly dissembled:
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>That the Easter faith in the Resurrection of Christ is the core of
>>>>Christianity can hardly be denied.
>>>
>>> That's why it's a death cult.
>>
>>A plagiarized, cannibalistic, death cult. Shit, I mean they can't even
>>come up with something, new. Its simply a rehash of 5000 years of every
>>myth and cult going.
>
> The foolishness of atheists never ceases to amaze me. Easter was already
> celebrated at the time of the resurrection as part of a pagan religion and
> it is even mentioned in the New Testament. Thus, it is impossible that
> Christians stole it in the first century.
>
> The church later used this date. Pagans were being converted into the
> church (we're jumping a century forward now) and the church had trouble
> shaking the pagan celebrations out of the people. Since the church was
> interested in a high number of converts at that time, they compromised
> with it, rather than combat it. That is how the Easter celebration got
> mixed in.
<snip>
Interesting line of "reasoning" you got there, arguing that Christians
didn't take the celebration from pagan traditions but, instead, took the
celebration from pagan traditions...
Codeb...@bigsecret.com
Pastor Dave
<big_m...@yahoo.com> spake thusly:
And a new contender for the fools crown emerges.
--
Pastor Dave
1st Century Church of Christ
"The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree;
he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that
are planted in the house of Jehovah shall flourish
in the courts of our God." - Psalm 92:12-13
Pastor Dave
<big_m...@yahoo.com> spake thusly:
>Pastor Dave wrote:
The point is, that the resurrection was not based on
paganism. Duh!
--
Pastor Dave
1st Century Church of Christ
"The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree;
Pastor Dave
<big_m...@yahoo.com> spake thusly:
>Pastor Dave wrote:
Goodbye. :)
--
Pastor Dave
1st Century Church of Christ
"The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree;
zambon...@knowshpamatyahoo.com
I thought it was Astaire, the god of dancing.
>
>Colin Day aa #1500
--
zamboni aa#2139
IKnowMoreThanYou
No, you confuse the fact that the Teutonic word "Lent" was merely used
to translate the Latin term "Quadragesima" (meaning fortieth).
Pious Christians fasting before celebration of the Resurrection is
recorded as early as c. AD 150. Since the length of time varied by
region, i.e., 1 or 2 days, 40 hours, 5 days and no general rule had
been set this can hardly be an imitation of rationing. And most
importantly, fasting was not limited to Easter. It was originally done
with 4 different Christian celebrations (as many as 8 in Armenia). It's
plain to see this was not a borrowing.
When it became the standardized "Quadragesima," the period of 40 days
is obviously nothing but biblcal following the examples of Moses,
Elias, and Jesus. As as the usage of the biblcal 40 was an example
from the Eastern Church, it can hardly be a borrowing from ealry
Teutonic or Northern European cultures.
> The Easter egg symbolises the
> continuation of life. Hence Christians hi-jacked Easter as the date of
> the alleged Resurrection of Jesus.
Highly doubtful as the first use of Easter eggs by Christians wasn't
until the 13th century, more than 1200 years after the Resurrection.
And the dating of Easter is initially based on when it is believed
Jesus was crucified according to the Hebrew calendar. Nothing pagan
about it.
>
> B C.
IKnowMoreThanYou
Mark K. Bilbo wrote:
> In <1128399334.0...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, "words of
> truth" <wordsof...@lycos.com> wrote:
>
> > Easter: Myth, Hallucination, or History?
>
> You forgot "pagan." I do love watching you folks celebrate a pagan goddess...
>
> (As in: Eostre the pagan Anglo-Saxon goddess)
I love watching people continue in their urban-myth-equivalence of
misconception.
Easter does not derive its name directly from the ancient goddess or
any celebration accorded her. It's name is derived from "Eostremonat,"
an ancient name for the month of April named for her (one of the usual
months for Easter's calculation). It's no more a celebration of a
pagan goddess any more than the 4th of July is a usurped celebration of
Julius Caesar (as July is named for him).
As English and German are the only languages this happens, and all
other languages' names for Easter are derived from the Jewish word for
"Passover" ("Pesach"), we're dealing with language/word borrowings, not
spiritual. (And the word borrowings happen to be long after the fact).
Joshua Calvert
news:s6v7k1h33pakug5oa...@4ax.com:
> On Wed, 5 Oct 2005 15:37:26 +0000 (UTC), Martin Edwards
> <big_m...@yahoo.com> spake thusly:
>
>>Pastor Dave wrote:
>>> On Tue, 4 Oct 2005 20:06:29 -0400, "Larry Heath"
>>> <lgh...@comcast.net> spake thusly:
>>>
>>>
>>>>"Soul food" <cth...@soulstogo.com> wrote in message
>>>>news:11k4k1drb401t5u7b...@4ax.com...
>>>>
>>>>>"words of truth" <wordsof...@lycos.com> shamelessly dissembled:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>That the Easter faith in the Resurrection of Christ is the core of
>>>>>>Christianity can hardly be denied.
>>>>>
>>>>>That's why it's a death cult.
>>>>
>>>>A plagiarized, cannibalistic, death cult. Shit, I mean they can't
>>>>even come up with something, new. Its simply a rehash of 5000 years
>>>>of every myth and cult going.
>>>
>>>
>>> The foolishness of atheists never ceases to amaze me.
>>> Easter was already celebrated at the time of the
>>> resurrection as part of a pagan religion and it is even
>>> mentioned in the New Testament. Thus, it is impossible
>>> that Christians stole it in the first century.
>>>
>>The point is that, as more and more pagans joined the sect, pagan
>>practices were adopted. Again, where did you qualify as a pastor?
>>You should have learned that in your first year.
>
> And a new contender for the fools crown emerges.
You've had everyone except KnowNothing beat for some time, moron.
--
----
Paraphrasing Bill Maher, Bush has lost, under his five year watch, two
skyscrapers,part of the Pentagon, four airliners, thousands of American
lives, a huge economic surplus, the trust of the American people, a Space
Shuttle, and now an ENTIRE MAJOR CITY.
But Republicans say, "Bush can not be blamed" or "It's Clinton's fault."
What will be the next disaster for which Bush can't be blamed?
Martin Edwards
> On Wed, 5 Oct 2005 15:37:26 +0000 (UTC), Martin Edwards
> <big_m...@yahoo.com> spake thusly:
>
>
>>Pastor Dave wrote:
>>
>>>On Tue, 4 Oct 2005 20:06:29 -0400, "Larry Heath"
>>><lgh...@comcast.net> spake thusly:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>"Soul food" <cth...@soulstogo.com> wrote in message
>>>>news:11k4k1drb401t5u7b...@4ax.com...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>"words of truth" <wordsof...@lycos.com> shamelessly dissembled:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>That the Easter faith in the Resurrection of Christ is the core of
>>>>>>Christianity can hardly be denied.
>>>>>
>>>>>That's why it's a death cult.
>>>>
>>>>A plagiarized, cannibalistic, death cult. Shit, I mean they can't even come
>>>>up with something, new. Its simply a rehash of 5000 years of every myth and
>>>>cult going.
>>>
>>>
>>>The foolishness of atheists never ceases to amaze me.
>>>Easter was already celebrated at the time of the
>>>resurrection as part of a pagan religion and it is even
>>>mentioned in the New Testament. Thus, it is impossible
>>>that Christians stole it in the first century.
>>>
>>
>>The point is that, as more and more pagans joined the sect, pagan
>>practices were adopted. Again, where did you qualify as a pastor? You
>>should have learned that in your first year.
>
>
> And a new contender for the fools crown emerges.
>
Martin Edwards
You know nothing. Go away and read through your local public library
for about twenty years.
Martin Edwards
> On Wed, 5 Oct 2005 15:37:26 +0000 (UTC), Martin Edwards
> <big_m...@yahoo.com> spake thusly:
>
>
>>Pastor Dave wrote:
>>
>>>On Tue, 4 Oct 2005 20:06:29 -0400, "Larry Heath"
>>><lgh...@comcast.net> spake thusly:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>"Soul food" <cth...@soulstogo.com> wrote in message
>>>>news:11k4k1drb401t5u7b...@4ax.com...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>"words of truth" <wordsof...@lycos.com> shamelessly dissembled:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>That the Easter faith in the Resurrection of Christ is the core of
>>>>>>Christianity can hardly be denied.
>>>>>
>>>>>That's why it's a death cult.
>>>>
>>>>A plagiarized, cannibalistic, death cult. Shit, I mean they can't even come
>>>>up with something, new. Its simply a rehash of 5000 years of every myth and
>>>>cult going.
>>>
>>>
>>>The foolishness of atheists never ceases to amaze me.
>>>Easter was already celebrated at the time of the
>>>resurrection as part of a pagan religion and it is even
>>>mentioned in the New Testament. Thus, it is impossible
>>>that Christians stole it in the first century.
>>>
>>
>>The point is that, as more and more pagans joined the sect, pagan
>>practices were adopted. Again, where did you qualify as a pastor? You
>>should have learned that in your first year.
>
>
> Goodbye. :)
>
Martin Edwards
absolutely Scheiß to do with Passover, so it is not a very good title.
Mark K. Bilbo
"IKnowMoreThanYou" <iknow_mo...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Mark K. Bilbo wrote:
>> In <1128399334.0...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, "words of
>> truth" <wordsof...@lycos.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Easter: Myth, Hallucination, or History?
>>
>> You forgot "pagan." I do love watching you folks celebrate a pagan
>> goddess...
>>
>> (As in: Eostre the pagan Anglo-Saxon goddess)
>
> I love watching people continue in their urban-myth-equivalence of
> misconception.
Yawn.
Dubh Ghall
Are you going to try and claim that xtianity, was the first religion to have a
god, incarnated as a man, killed, and resurected?
Kurt Nicklas
No, just the first and only one that really WAS.
--
Kurt Nicklas
Vocatus atque non vocatus deus aderit
1945 Dead
wrote:
And Knickers knows this because Putsch told him so.
Kurt Nicklas
My, you ARE following me around today like a puppy aren't you,
Greywolf-Jamieson?
I think it's pretty funny...
Dubh Ghall
>>Are you going to try and claim that xtianity, was the first religion to have a
>>god, incarnated as a man, killed, and resurected?
>
>No, just the first and only one that really WAS.
Presumably, you have some evidence to support that?
Larry Heath
"Pastor Dave" <1news-gr...@nospam-tampa-bay.rr.com> wrote in message
news:3486k19oodsumee2h...@4ax.com...
YOU PROMISE! Really, really, honest to your god, promise not to reply to the
people here in alt.atheism ever, ever again, you promise on a "stack O
bibles", please, please say its true!
But we all know you can't do it, can you, oh no, not in a million years.
Not a chance, the unsupported, unrealistic, gibbering, theistic nonsense
just keeps flowing out of you like, pus, out of an infected carbuncle,
infecting everything it comes in contact with, it will never stop, not until
it is cut out whole and the flesh where it was rooted is cauterized and
strong medicine is used to prevent its reappearance.
Look at your own signature, you are still living in the 1st Century, "1st
Century Church of Christ", and are wholly incapable of accepting the
realities of the 21st century. You are 20 centuries out of date, 2
millennia, for a 100 generations you and those like you have been by
circumlocution accreting masses of utter nonsense, based on a SINGLE source
of evidence, the bible. For which there is no historical documentation for
the validation of the mythos written there in. While every reasonable source
of verifiable, documented, reproducible, evidence suggest just the opposite
of what you say, as well as that of every theist, cultist and purveyor of
the supernatural blather on the face of the earth.
Kurt Nicklas
What sort of evidence are you looking for?
Kurt Nicklas
Christopher A. Lee
wrote:
>In article <kljdk1534fl8e69s7...@4ax.com>, Dubh Ghall says...
>>
>>On 6 Oct 2005 15:21:13 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>
>>>>Are you going to try and claim that xtianity, was the first religion to have a
>>>>god, incarnated as a man, killed, and resurected?
>>>
>>>No, just the first and only one that really WAS.
>>
>>
>>Presumably, you have some evidence to support that?
>
>What sort of evidence are you looking for?
Not our problem.
Evidence that leads inescapably to show that your ridiculous assertin
is correct.
Are you really this stupid, just pretending, or dishonest?
It's your problem, not ours. You're making the claim about something
we wouldn't give a shit about.
You're the one who has to put up or shut up.
You're the one wo knows what would support his claim,not us.
And instead of providing it you attempt a transparent cop out.
Martin Edwards
> In article <kljdk1534fl8e69s7...@4ax.com>, Dubh Ghall says...
>
>>On 6 Oct 2005 15:21:13 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>Are you going to try and claim that xtianity, was the first religion to have a
>>>>god, incarnated as a man, killed, and resurected?
>>>
>>>No, just the first and only one that really WAS.
>>
>>
>>Presumably, you have some evidence to support that?
>
>
> What sort of evidence are you looking for?
>
>
Zero, crucified criminal revives.
Martin Edwards
1954 Dead
wrote:
>In article <kljdk1534fl8e69s7...@4ax.com>, Dubh Ghall says...
>>
>>On 6 Oct 2005 15:21:13 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>
>>>>Are you going to try and claim that xtianity, was the first religion to have a
>>>>god, incarnated as a man, killed, and resurected?
>>>
>>>No, just the first and only one that really WAS.
>>
>>
>>Presumably, you have some evidence to support that?
>
>What sort of evidence are you looking for?
ANY would be a good start, Knickers!
Come on! You're Jesus' fair-haired boy, aren't you? Convince us he
really came out of his cave, saw his shadow, and gave us six more
weeks of Lent.
--
"'I’m not meeting with that goddamned bitch,' Bush screamed at aides
who suggested he meet with Cindy Sheehan, the war-protesting mother
whose son died in Iraq. 'She can go to hell as far as I’m concerned!'"
--Putsch, a decompensating drunk
"Grover Norquist couldn't drown the government, so he drowned New Orleans instead."
Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!
Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to.
For the finest in liberal/leftist commentary,
http://www.zeppscommentaries.com
For news feed (free, 10-20 articles a day)
http://groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/zepps_news
For essays (donations accepted, 2 articles/week)
http://groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/zepps_essays
a.a. #2211 -- Bryan Zepp Jamieson
Kurt Nicklas
says...
>
>Kurt Nicklas wrote:
>> In article <kljdk1534fl8e69s7...@4ax.com>, Dubh Ghall says...
>>
>>>On 6 Oct 2005 15:21:13 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>>Are you going to try and claim that xtianity, was the first religion to have a
>>>>>god, incarnated as a man, killed, and resurected?
>>>>
>>>>No, just the first and only one that really WAS.
>>>
>>>
>>>Presumably, you have some evidence to support that?
>>
>>
>> What sort of evidence are you looking for?
>>
>>
>Contemporary reports would be a start. As in Acta Diurna Passover, Year
>Zero, crucified criminal revives.
So you're looking for verifiable, first-person reports from 20 centuries ago,
right? Preferably with independent corroboration?
Larry Heath
"Kurt Nicklas" <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote in message
news:di88m...@drn.newsguy.com...
No, I do not hate you, I hate what I see as the ignorance you spread, based
on un-validated assertions, that cause people to do more ignorant things
that are bad for all people. The more aggressive among the religious cults
here in the US are now trying desperately to foist their nonsense on a
vulnerable population, school children, in there attempt to force there
religious views on the general population. This aggressiveness and
politicizing of religion I feel requires my rethinking of my former position
of live and let live with respect to religions, no more. If you wish to
teach your own children, your religious beliefs, that is your business, but
not my children and particularly in the place that should be the devoid of
religion, of any type, public schools. But in public, you certainly have
the right to espouse any religious beliefs you wish, but I also have the
right to vocally and vociferously disagree with everything you say, and
point out that I feel you are ignorant and doing a disservice to humanity in
general. Being this is a public venue specifically designed for discourse
I am availing myself of the opportunity to disagree with you, and to do so
using what ever verbiage I choose.
No, I really do not hate you, in fact, I really feel sorry for you, and the
masses like you that continue to live a life based on dogma, ignorance and
2000 years worth of propaganda in the case of the Christian religion.
Later, Larry.
aa # 2216
Dubh Ghall
>In article <kljdk1534fl8e69s7...@4ax.com>, Dubh Ghall says...
>>
>>On 6 Oct 2005 15:21:13 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>
>>>>Are you going to try and claim that xtianity, was the first religion to have a
>>>>god, incarnated as a man, killed, and resurected?
>>>
>>>No, just the first and only one that really WAS.
>>
>>
>>Presumably, you have some evidence to support that?
>
>What sort of evidence are you looking for?
Objective, empirical, evidence.
Dubh Ghall
>You really hate us, don't you?
Hate you?
No kid; You aint that good.
Christopher A. Lee
wrote:
It's easier to imagine that it is hatred rather than address the
actual reasons people react negatively to their arrogance, falsehoods
and stupidity.
Dubh Ghall
wrote:
The problem is, from the perspective of the religious, that being able to
address the issues, requires the ability to reason, and thus, the ability to
think.
Should they cease from their childish retorts, even once, and start to think,
start to actually give some serious consideration to the questions, they might
begin to ask some of those same questions them selves, and that would not be
good for religion.
In order to maintain status quo, those at the top, the ones who know which side
their bread is buttered, and where the money for butter comes from, push the
idea that every disagreement with their beliefs, is hatred, or Satan talking,
etc, and so should be ignored.
wbarwell
> In article <kljdk1534fl8e69s7...@4ax.com>, Dubh
> Ghall says...
>>
>>On 6 Oct 2005 15:21:13 -0700, Kurt Nicklas
>><kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>
>>>>Are you going to try and claim that xtianity, was the first
>>>>religion to have a god, incarnated as a man, killed, and
>>>>resurected?
>>>
>>>No, just the first and only one that really WAS.
>>
>>
>>Presumably, you have some evidence to support that?
>
> What sort of evidence are you looking for?
>
>
Written evidence shows us Osirus was a soter god 2000
years before Jesus. The so called Eucharist was stolen from
Osirian religous rites, and these themselves were found in
almost every Greek mystery religion centuries before Christ.
--
The official spokesman of the Foxes said
today that investigation into what happened
to the henhouse may be needed.
Cheerful Charlie
wbarwell
> In article <di8j0d$992$1...@nwrdmz01.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com>,
> Martin Edwards says...
>>
>>Kurt Nicklas wrote:
>>> In article <kljdk1534fl8e69s7...@4ax.com>, Dubh
>>> Ghall says...
>>>
>>>>On 6 Oct 2005 15:21:13 -0700, Kurt Nicklas
>>>><kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>Are you going to try and claim that xtianity, was the first
>>>>>>religion to have a god, incarnated as a man, killed, and
>>>>>>resurected?
>>>>>
>>>>>No, just the first and only one that really WAS.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Presumably, you have some evidence to support that?
>>>
>>>
>>> What sort of evidence are you looking for?
>>>
>>>
>>Contemporary reports would be a start. As in Acta Diurna
>>Passover, Year Zero, crucified criminal revives.
>
> So you're looking for verifiable, first-person reports from 20
> centuries ago, right? Preferably with independent
> corroboration?
The problem is, all you have are the gospels.
Luke tells us jesus told his apostles to tarry in Jerusalem, lead
thm out to the village of Bethany and aose to heaven there.
Matthew tells us that Jesus sent word via the women at the tomb
that his apostles were to travel to Galilee, which they did. No
ascention to heaven mentioned.
Mark tells us that Jesus apearred to his apostles in Jerusalem,
spoke to them, and then and there arose to heaven.
The problem is your gospels are not eyewitnesses, contradict each
other on everything they relate, and are not true in any way.
These are not only not firstahand reports, they were obviously
not derived from any first hand reports.
Only fools believe contradictory tripe like this and don't notice
the lies and made up tall tales that are passed off as truth.
The gospel of Matthew hs jesus telling his followers that he'd
presdie over judgement day and teh end of the world.
Matthew 16:27-8, Matthew 25:31-46.
Not some far distant future date but then and there, in "this
generation" Matthew 24:36, in the time of "some standing here"
Matthew 16:27-8, Mark 9, and during the lifespan of the high
priest at jerisalem, Matthew 24:30, Matthew 26:64, Mark 14:62.
This prohecy of end of the world and judgment day itself 1930
years ago did not happen as prophecied.
And jesus promised his followers great miracle working abilities
nobody gets.
All around as big a religous bust as any faux prophet foisted
on the uneducated and gulllible.
I don't get it. Why does anybody find this nonsense attractive?
********************************************
Mark 11:23-4
For verily I say this unto you, That
whosoever shall say unto this mountain,
Be thou removed, and be thou cast
into the sea; and shall not doubt
in his heart, but shall believe that
those things which he saith shall
come to pass; he shall have whatsoever
he saith.
Therefore I say unto you, What things
soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe
ye recieve them and ye shall have them.
Matthew 18:19-20
Again I say unto you, that if two
of you shall agree on earth as
touching anything that they shall
ask, it shall be done for them of
my father which is in heaven.
For where two or three are gathered
in my name, there I am in the midst
of them.
Matthew 21:22
And all things,whatsoever ye shall ask
in prayer, believeing, ye shall recieve.
John 14:12-14
12: Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that
believeth on me, the works that I do shall he
do also; and greater works than these shall
he do;because I go unto my Father.
13: And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name,
that will I do, that the Father may be
glorified in the Son.
14: If ye shall ask any thing in my name,
I will do it.
***********************************************
Kurt Nicklas
>
>Kurt Nicklas wrote:
>
>> In article <di8j0d$992$1...@nwrdmz01.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com>,
>> Martin Edwards says...
>>>
>>>Kurt Nicklas wrote:
>>>> In article <kljdk1534fl8e69s7...@4ax.com>, Dubh
>>>> Ghall says...
>>>>
>>>>>On 6 Oct 2005 15:21:13 -0700, Kurt Nicklas
>>>>><kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>>Are you going to try and claim that xtianity, was the first
>>>>>>>religion to have a god, incarnated as a man, killed, and
>>>>>>>resurected?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>No, just the first and only one that really WAS.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Presumably, you have some evidence to support that?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> What sort of evidence are you looking for?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>Contemporary reports would be a start. As in Acta Diurna
>>>Passover, Year Zero, crucified criminal revives.
>>
>> So you're looking for verifiable, first-person reports from 20
>> centuries ago, right? Preferably with independent
>> corroboration?
>
>The problem is, all you have are the gospels.
Who says? You?
Matt Giwer
> In article <di8j0d$992$1...@nwrdmz01.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com>, Martin Edwards
> says...
>>Kurt Nicklas wrote:
>>>In article <kljdk1534fl8e69s7...@4ax.com>, Dubh Ghall says...
>>>>On 6 Oct 2005 15:21:13 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>>>>>Are you going to try and claim that xtianity, was the first religion to have a
>>>>>>god, incarnated as a man, killed, and resurected?
>>>>>No, just the first and only one that really WAS.
>>>>Presumably, you have some evidence to support that?
>>>What sort of evidence are you looking for?
>>Contemporary reports would be a start. As in Acta Diurna Passover, Year
>>Zero, crucified criminal revives.
> So you're looking for verifiable, first-person reports from 20 centuries ago,
> right? Preferably with independent corroboration?
Just as we have for so many other people from 20 centuries ago, the other JC for example.
--
Israelis say the Krystallnacht was no worse than uprooting jews
from Gaza. Who am I to argue?
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3503
nizkor http://www.giwersworld.org/nizkook/nizkook.phtml
Lawful to bomb Israelis http://www.giwersworld.org/israel/bombings.phtml a11
Christopher A. Lee
wrote:
>In article <11kgqpk...@corp.supernews.com>, wbarwell says...
>>
>>Kurt Nicklas wrote:
>>
>>> In article <di8j0d$992$1...@nwrdmz01.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com>,
>>> Martin Edwards says...
>>>>
>>>>Kurt Nicklas wrote:
>>>>> In article <kljdk1534fl8e69s7...@4ax.com>, Dubh
>>>>> Ghall says...
>>>>>
>>>>>>On 6 Oct 2005 15:21:13 -0700, Kurt Nicklas
>>>>>><kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Are you going to try and claim that xtianity, was the first
>>>>>>>>religion to have a god, incarnated as a man, killed, and
>>>>>>>>resurected?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>No, just the first and only one that really WAS.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Presumably, you have some evidence to support that?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> What sort of evidence are you looking for?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Contemporary reports would be a start. As in Acta Diurna
>>>>Passover, Year Zero, crucified criminal revives.
>>>
>>> So you're looking for verifiable, first-person reports from 20
>>> centuries ago, right? Preferably with independent
>>> corroboration?
>>
>>The problem is, all you have are the gospels.
>
>Who says? You?
Notice how Kurt doesn't even try to falsify this by providing any of
this hypothetical evidence.
But then we already knew he hadn't got any and was playing games, as
soon as he asked what kind we wanted.
Kurt Nicklas
What would constitute "objective, empirical" evidence for you of an event which
occured 2000 years ago?
Kurt Nicklas
Nah, you hate me and you think, despite what you say, that I, those who believe
as I do and those beliefs that I hold would be better wiped from the earth.
Voltaire was at least more honest and less self-delusional than you - "Ecrasez
l'infame!", he said.
Christopher A. Lee
wrote:
>In article <rgegk191o20g5no7b...@4ax.com>, Dubh Ghall says...
>>
>>On 8 Oct 2005 03:56:06 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>
>>>In article <kljdk1534fl8e69s7...@4ax.com>, Dubh Ghall says...
>>>>
>>>>On 6 Oct 2005 15:21:13 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>>Are you going to try and claim that xtianity, was the first religion to have a
>>>>>>god, incarnated as a man, killed, and resurected?
>>>>>
>>>>>No, just the first and only one that really WAS.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Presumably, you have some evidence to support that?
>>>
>>>What sort of evidence are you looking for?
>>
>>
>>Objective, empirical, evidence.
>
>What would constitute "objective, empirical" evidence for you of an event which
>occured 2000 years ago?
Again, that's your problem not his. You're the one making the
ridiculous claim, not him. If you had any it would have been easier to
give it than try these stupid copouts.
Christopher A. Lee
wrote:
>>No, I really do not hate you, in fact, I really feel sorry for you, and the
>>masses like you that continue to live a life based on dogma, ignorance and
>>2000 years worth of propaganda in the case of the Christian religion.
>
>Nah, you hate me and you think, despite what you say, that I, those who believe
>as I do and those beliefs that I hold would be better wiped from the earth.
It's easier to resort to personal lies and nastiness than address the
real reasons people react negatively, isn't it?
>Voltaire was at least more honest and less self-delusional than you - "Ecrasez
>l'infame!", he said.
But having done it the first time you have to keep escalating your own
nastiness with more personal lies.
But then you're an all too typical lying Christian.
1954 Dead
wrote:
>In article <11kgqpk...@corp.supernews.com>, wbarwell says...
>>
>>Kurt Nicklas wrote:
>>
>>> In article <di8j0d$992$1...@nwrdmz01.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com>,
>>> Martin Edwards says...
>>>>
>>>>Kurt Nicklas wrote:
>>>>> In article <kljdk1534fl8e69s7...@4ax.com>, Dubh
>>>>> Ghall says...
>>>>>
>>>>>>On 6 Oct 2005 15:21:13 -0700, Kurt Nicklas
>>>>>><kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Are you going to try and claim that xtianity, was the first
>>>>>>>>religion to have a god, incarnated as a man, killed, and
>>>>>>>>resurected?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>No, just the first and only one that really WAS.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Presumably, you have some evidence to support that?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> What sort of evidence are you looking for?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Contemporary reports would be a start. As in Acta Diurna
>>>>Passover, Year Zero, crucified criminal revives.
>>>
>>> So you're looking for verifiable, first-person reports from 20
>>> centuries ago, right? Preferably with independent
>>> corroboration?
>>
>>The problem is, all you have are the gospels.
>
>Who says? You?
You got anything else, now is the time to trot it out.
1954 Dead
<jul...@tampabay.REMover.rr.com> wrote:
>Kurt Nicklas wrote:
>> In article <di8j0d$992$1...@nwrdmz01.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com>, Martin Edwards
>> says...
>>>Kurt Nicklas wrote:
>>>>In article <kljdk1534fl8e69s7...@4ax.com>, Dubh Ghall says...
>>>>>On 6 Oct 2005 15:21:13 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>>>>>>Are you going to try and claim that xtianity, was the first religion to have a
>>>>>>>god, incarnated as a man, killed, and resurected?
>>>>>>No, just the first and only one that really WAS.
>>>>>Presumably, you have some evidence to support that?
>>>>What sort of evidence are you looking for?
>
>>>Contemporary reports would be a start. As in Acta Diurna Passover, Year
>>>Zero, crucified criminal revives.
>
>> So you're looking for verifiable, first-person reports from 20 centuries ago,
>> right? Preferably with independent corroboration?
>
> Just as we have for so many other people from 20 centuries ago, the other JC for example.
The -other- JC?
wbarwell
Yeah, wanna make something of it?
What else do you have? Name something.
We have no first hand reports about Jesus at all.
We have the babblings of Paul who mentions nothing found in the
gospels, we have the gospels that contradict each other on every
important point.
You have Tacitus who tell us nothing, Suetonius, and few others
who tell us almost nothing. There are no eyewitness accounts
that knew anything about Jesus the man.
This has been known for centuries since the first true critical
looks at the subject, since Renan, Strauss and other early
thinkers looked at the subject.
You got any cites worth posting that show us source materials
that can be considered eyewitness accounts?
No?
thomas p
wrote:
>In article <d9ydnYc_r86...@comcast.com>, Larry Heath says...
>>
>>
>>"Kurt Nicklas" <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote in message
>>news:di88m...@drn.newsguy.com...
>>> In article <xv6dnTB0o_6...@comcast.com>, Larry Heath says...
snip
>>
>>
>>No, I really do not hate you, in fact, I really feel sorry for you, and the
>>masses like you that continue to live a life based on dogma, ignorance and
>>2000 years worth of propaganda in the case of the Christian religion.
>
>Nah, you hate me and you think, despite what you say, that I, those who believe
>as I do and those beliefs that I hold would be better wiped from the earth.
>
What gives you the right to tell other people what they are thinking?
>Voltaire was at least more honest and less self-delusional than you - "Ecrasez
>l'infame!", he said.
And Voltaire was not talking about Christians.
Thomas P.
"Life must be lived forwards but understood backwards"
(Kierkegaard)
Dubh Ghall
>>The problem is, all you have are the gospels.
>
>Who says? You?
So if you have got something else: Show it.
Dubh Ghall
That is your problem, you are claiming it happened: Without evidence, I don't
believe it.
Dubh Ghall
>>No, I really do not hate you, in fact, I really feel sorry for you, and the
>>masses like you that continue to live a life based on dogma, ignorance and
>>2000 years worth of propaganda in the case of the Christian religion.
>
>Nah, you hate me and you think, despite what you say, that I, those who believe
>as I do and those beliefs that I hold would be better wiped from the earth.
What makes you think that you are worth hating?
Is it some deep xtian need?
Is it that you feel that you cannot be a true xtian, if you are not
"persecuted"?
Silly child.
It may be true, we feel that your beliefs, and all superstition, would be better
wiped from the universe, but we know that, that is all that keeps many of your
xtian psychopaths, in check.
And when we do eventually "wipe you out", it will be done the civilised,
atheist, way, by education, not the xtian way, with the sword.
Dubh Ghall
>On 8 Oct 2005 19:01:21 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru>
>wrote:
>
>>In article <d9ydnYc_r86...@comcast.com>, Larry Heath says...
>>>
>>>
>>>"Kurt Nicklas" <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote in message
>>>news:di88m...@drn.newsguy.com...
>>>> In article <xv6dnTB0o_6...@comcast.com>, Larry Heath says...
>snip
>>>
>>>
>>>No, I really do not hate you, in fact, I really feel sorry for you, and the
>>>masses like you that continue to live a life based on dogma, ignorance and
>>>2000 years worth of propaganda in the case of the Christian religion.
>>
>
>>Nah, you hate me and you think, despite what you say, that I, those who believe
>>as I do and those beliefs that I hold would be better wiped from the earth.
>>
>
>What gives you the right to tell other people what they are thinking?
>
God, talks to him.
...Well, he hears voices.
Much the same thing.
Richard Smol
Pastor Dave wrote:
> On Tue, 4 Oct 2005 20:06:29 -0400, "Larry Heath"
> <lgh...@comcast.net> spake thusly:
>
> >
> >"Soul food" <cth...@soulstogo.com> wrote in message
> >news:11k4k1drb401t5u7b...@4ax.com...
> >> "words of truth" <wordsof...@lycos.com> shamelessly dissembled:
> >>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>That the Easter faith in the Resurrection of Christ is the core of
> >>>Christianity can hardly be denied.
> >>
> >> That's why it's a death cult.
> >
> >A plagiarized, cannibalistic, death cult. Shit, I mean they can't even come
> >up with something, new. Its simply a rehash of 5000 years of every myth and
> >cult going.
>
> The foolishness of atheists never ceases to amaze me.
> Easter was already celebrated at the time of the
> resurrection as part of a pagan religion and it is even
> mentioned in the New Testament. Thus, it is impossible
> that Christians stole it in the first century.
Christians simply stole the whole myth of a god-man who
gets resurrected. It goes back as far as the myth of Osiris...
RS
Kurt Nicklas
>
>Kurt Nicklas wrote:
>>>> So you're looking for verifiable, first-person reports from
>>>> 20 centuries ago, right? Preferably with independent
>>>> corroboration?
>>>
>>>The problem is, all you have are the gospels.
>>
>> Who says? You?
>
>Yeah, wanna make something of it?
>
>What else do you have? Name something.
Easy. Holy Tradition and the interpretation of the Church.
Next?
Kurt Nicklas
>
>On 8 Oct 2005 19:01:21 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru>
>wrote:
>
>>In article <d9ydnYc_r86...@comcast.com>, Larry Heath says...
>>>
>>>
>>>"Kurt Nicklas" <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote in message
>>>news:di88m...@drn.newsguy.com...
>>>> In article <xv6dnTB0o_6...@comcast.com>, Larry Heath says...
>snip
>>>
>>>
>>>No, I really do not hate you, in fact, I really feel sorry for you, and the
>>>masses like you that continue to live a life based on dogma, ignorance and
>>>2000 years worth of propaganda in the case of the Christian religion.
>>
>
>>Nah, you hate me and you think, despite what you say, that I, those who believe
>>as I do and those beliefs that I hold would be better wiped from the earth.
>>
>
>What gives you the right to tell other people what they are thinking?
The 1st amendment.
>
>>Voltaire was at least more honest and less self-delusional than you - "Ecrasez
>>l'infame!", he said.
>
>And Voltaire was not talking about Christians.
But you THINK of Christians when you read that quote, don't you, Thomas?
{snickers}
Kurt Nicklas
>
>On 8 Oct 2005 19:01:21 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>
>>>No, I really do not hate you, in fact, I really feel sorry for you, and the
>>>masses like you that continue to live a life based on dogma, ignorance and
>>>2000 years worth of propaganda in the case of the Christian religion.
>>
>>Nah, you hate me and you think, despite what you say, that I, those who believe
>>as I do and those beliefs that I hold would be better wiped from the earth.
>
>
>What makes you think that you are worth hating?
That's a question you need you ask *yourself*.
Kurt Nicklas
You're being lazy and disengenous. Your posts seem to indicate you've already
made up your mind _without_ looking at evidence so I'm wondering just what sort
of evidence of an event from 2000 years in the past could overcome such obvious
unscientific prejudice.
Can you tell me or are you going to continue evading the question?
PMDavis
wrote:
>Kurt Nicklas wrote:
>
>> In article <kljdk1534fl8e69s7...@4ax.com>, Dubh
>> Ghall says...
>>>
>>>On 6 Oct 2005 15:21:13 -0700, Kurt Nicklas
>>><kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>>
>>>>>Are you going to try and claim that xtianity, was the first
>>>>>religion to have a god, incarnated as a man, killed, and
>>>>>resurected?
>>>>
>>>>No, just the first and only one that really WAS.
>>>
>>>
>>>Presumably, you have some evidence to support that?
>>
>> What sort of evidence are you looking for?
>>
>>
>
>Written evidence shows us Osirus was a soter god 2000
>years before Jesus. The so called Eucharist was stolen from
>Osirian religous rites, and these themselves were found in
>almost every Greek mystery religion centuries before Christ.
Hum, must be a good way to worship if it has been so popular....
Christopher A. Lee
wrote:
>In article <11khdcu...@corp.supernews.com>, wbarwell says...
>>
>>Kurt Nicklas wrote:
>>>>> So you're looking for verifiable, first-person reports from
>>>>> 20 centuries ago, right? Preferably with independent
>>>>> corroboration?
>>>>
>>>>The problem is, all you have are the gospels.
>>>
>>> Who says? You?
>>
>>Yeah, wanna make something of it?
>>
>>What else do you have? Name something.
>
>Easy. Holy Tradition and the interpretation of the Church.
None of which is evidence, idiot.
>Next?
thomas p
wrote:
>In article <gtfhk1hbs4egql2lg...@4ax.com>, thomas p says...
>>
>>On 8 Oct 2005 19:01:21 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>In article <d9ydnYc_r86...@comcast.com>, Larry Heath says...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>"Kurt Nicklas" <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote in message
>>>>news:di88m...@drn.newsguy.com...
>>>>> In article <xv6dnTB0o_6...@comcast.com>, Larry Heath says...
>>snip
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>No, I really do not hate you, in fact, I really feel sorry for you, and the
>>>>masses like you that continue to live a life based on dogma, ignorance and
>>>>2000 years worth of propaganda in the case of the Christian religion.
>>>
>>
>>>Nah, you hate me and you think, despite what you say, that I, those who believe
>>>as I do and those beliefs that I hold would be better wiped from the earth.
>>>
>>
>>What gives you the right to tell other people what they are thinking?
>
>The 1st amendment.
>
It would have been nice if you had responded to my question instead of
being "clever".
>>
>>>Voltaire was at least more honest and less self-delusional than you - "Ecrasez
>>>l'infame!", he said.
>>
>>And Voltaire was not talking about Christians.
>
>But you THINK of Christians when you read that quote, don't you, Thomas?
>
>{snickers}
I have a suggestion. Let's discuss actual issues.
thomas p
wrote:
>In article <11khdcu...@corp.supernews.com>, wbarwell says...
>>
>>Kurt Nicklas wrote:
>>>>> So you're looking for verifiable, first-person reports from
>>>>> 20 centuries ago, right? Preferably with independent
>>>>> corroboration?
>>>>
>>>>The problem is, all you have are the gospels.
>>>
>>> Who says? You?
>>
>>Yeah, wanna make something of it?
>>
>>What else do you have? Name something.
>
>Easy. Holy Tradition and the interpretation of the Church.
>
>Next?
Do you have any objective evidence to offer for the truth of the
doctrines of Christianity? As far as I can see my question is
perfectly legitimate, and I would appreciate an honest answer.
Dubh Ghall
>In article <11khdcu...@corp.supernews.com>, wbarwell says...
>>
>>Kurt Nicklas wrote:
>>>>> So you're looking for verifiable, first-person reports from
>>>>> 20 centuries ago, right? Preferably with independent
>>>>> corroboration?
>>>>
>>>>The problem is, all you have are the gospels.
>>>
>>> Who says? You?
>>
>>Yeah, wanna make something of it?
>>
>>What else do you have? Name something.
>
>Easy. Holy Tradition and the interpretation of the Church.
>
>Next?
So, nothing, in fact.
Dubh Ghall
>In article <kanhk1tcv1lq4tcst...@4ax.com>, Dubh Ghall says...
>>
>>On 8 Oct 2005 18:55:23 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>
>>>In article <rgegk191o20g5no7b...@4ax.com>, Dubh Ghall says...
>>>>
>>>>On 8 Oct 2005 03:56:06 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>In article <kljdk1534fl8e69s7...@4ax.com>, Dubh Ghall says...
>>>>>>
>>>>>>On 6 Oct 2005 15:21:13 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Are you going to try and claim that xtianity, was the first religion to have a
>>>>>>>>god, incarnated as a man, killed, and resurected?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>No, just the first and only one that really WAS.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Presumably, you have some evidence to support that?
>>>>>
>>>>>What sort of evidence are you looking for?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Objective, empirical, evidence.
>>>
>>>What would constitute "objective, empirical" evidence for you of an event which
>>>occured 2000 years ago?
>>
>>That is your problem, you are claiming it happened: Without evidence, I don't
>>believe it.
>
>You're being lazy and disengenous.
Is that what I am being?
Okay.
>Your posts seem to indicate you've already
>made up your mind _without_ looking at evidence
Sunshine, I was a xtian, before you were born; Probably before your daddy was
born.
I was headed for the ministry, intent that I would spend my life serving
God/Jesus, however he needed me.
My faith was real, and because of it, and my innocence, I lost my home, my
friends, my village, and even my country; and eventually, my faith.
It took two years to lose everything else, and another three, before I finally
had to admit to my self, that everything I believed, was a lie.
So don't come telling me, that I am too lazy to look at the evidence, or that I
am disingenuous.
I have been there, and was lucky to get out with my life. I still have the
scars, the physical ones at least.
>Can you tell me or are you going to continue evading the question?
There is nothing to tell. Do you have evidence, testable, verifiable, etc?
Anything which is NOT subjective.
The field is wide open to you, the only limitation, is "No subjectives"
The evasion is yours
Dubh Ghall
>In article <gtfhk1hbs4egql2lg...@4ax.com>, thomas p says...
>>
>>On 8 Oct 2005 19:01:21 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>In article <d9ydnYc_r86...@comcast.com>, Larry Heath says...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>"Kurt Nicklas" <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote in message
>>>>news:di88m...@drn.newsguy.com...
>>>>> In article <xv6dnTB0o_6...@comcast.com>, Larry Heath says...
>>snip
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>No, I really do not hate you, in fact, I really feel sorry for you, and the
>>>>masses like you that continue to live a life based on dogma, ignorance and
>>>>2000 years worth of propaganda in the case of the Christian religion.
>>>
>>
>>>Nah, you hate me and you think, despite what you say, that I, those who believe
>>>as I do and those beliefs that I hold would be better wiped from the earth.
>>>
>>
>>What gives you the right to tell other people what they are thinking?
>
>The 1st amendment.
>
No, it doesn't. It only gives you the right to say that, that is what you
THINK, they are thinking.
For everything else, there are slander, and libel, laws.
>>
>>>Voltaire was at least more honest and less self-delusional than you - "Ecrasez
>>>l'infame!", he said.
>>
>>And Voltaire was not talking about Christians.
>
>But you THINK of Christians when you read that quote, don't you, Thomas?
>
Whether Thomas, does, or not, is irrelevant. What is plainly obvious, is that
you do.
Why else raise the matter at all?
Dubh Ghall
Why? Does someone hate me then? Or do I imagine that someone hates me?
I would be interested to know who it might be.
Martin Edwards
> In article <di8j0d$992$1...@nwrdmz01.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com>, Martin Edwards
> says...
>
>>Kurt Nicklas wrote:
>>
>>>In article <kljdk1534fl8e69s7...@4ax.com>, Dubh Ghall says...
>>>
>>>
>>>>On 6 Oct 2005 15:21:13 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>Are you going to try and claim that xtianity, was the first religion to have a
>>>>>>god, incarnated as a man, killed, and resurected?
>>>>>
>>>>>No, just the first and only one that really WAS.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Presumably, you have some evidence to support that?
>>>
>>>
>>>What sort of evidence are you looking for?
>>>
>>>
>>
>>Zero, crucified criminal revives.
>
>
> right? Preferably with independent corroboration?
>
>
--
You can't fool me: there ain't no Sanity Clause - Chico Marx
Martin Edwards
> In article <11kgqpk...@corp.supernews.com>, wbarwell says...
>
>>Kurt Nicklas wrote:
>>
>>
>>>In article <di8j0d$992$1...@nwrdmz01.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com>,
>>>Martin Edwards says...
>>>
>>>>Kurt Nicklas wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>In article <kljdk1534fl8e69s7...@4ax.com>, Dubh
>>>>>Ghall says...
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>On 6 Oct 2005 15:21:13 -0700, Kurt Nicklas
>>>>>><kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Are you going to try and claim that xtianity, was the first
>>>>>>>>religion to have a god, incarnated as a man, killed, and
>>>>>>>>resurected?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>No, just the first and only one that really WAS.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Presumably, you have some evidence to support that?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>What sort of evidence are you looking for?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Contemporary reports would be a start. As in Acta Diurna
>>>>Passover, Year Zero, crucified criminal revives.
>>>
>>>So you're looking for verifiable, first-person reports from 20
>>>centuries ago, right? Preferably with independent
>>>corroboration?
>>
>
>
> Who says? You?
>
>
Martin Edwards
>
> The -other- JC?
Julius Caesar. I believe in credit where it is due and Matt has chosen
rather a nice comparison. The location of the murder is known (or
agreed upon anyway) and admirers of what Caesar stood for put flowers
there *to this day*. Nobody, however, has tried to suggest that he came
to life three days later.
Martin Edwards
> On 8 Oct 2005 03:56:06 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru>
> wrote:
>
>
>>In article <kljdk1534fl8e69s7...@4ax.com>, Dubh Ghall says...
>>
>>>On 6 Oct 2005 15:21:13 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>>Are you going to try and claim that xtianity, was the first religion to have a
>>>>>god, incarnated as a man, killed, and resurected?
>>>>
>>>>No, just the first and only one that really WAS.
>>>
>>>
>>>Presumably, you have some evidence to support that?
>>
>>What sort of evidence are you looking for?
>
>
>
I don't think they wore them.
Martin Edwards
It rather lost its appeal in the West when the clergy reserved the wine
for themselves.
wbarwell
Nobody hates you, you are not worth the effort.
People just think you are a jerk is all.
Martin Edwards
is considered camp.
Kurt Nicklas
>
>On 9 Oct 2005 03:47:14 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>
>>In article <vlnhk1haphqqb7snj...@4ax.com>, Dubh Ghall says...
>>>
>>>On 8 Oct 2005 19:01:21 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>>
>>>>>No, I really do not hate you, in fact, I really feel sorry for you, and the
>>>>>masses like you that continue to live a life based on dogma, ignorance and
>>>>>2000 years worth of propaganda in the case of the Christian religion.
>>>>
>>>>Nah, you hate me and you think, despite what you say, that I, those who believe
>>>>as I do and those beliefs that I hold would be better wiped from the earth.
>>>
>>>
>>>What makes you think that you are worth hating?
>>
>>That's a question you need you ask *yourself*.
>
>Why?
Think about it.
wbarwell
> In article <kanhk1tcv1lq4tcst...@4ax.com>, Dubh
> Ghall says...
>>
>>On 8 Oct 2005 18:55:23 -0700, Kurt Nicklas
>><kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>
*******************
>>>>>What sort of evidence are you looking for?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Objective, empirical, evidence.
>>>
>>>What would constitute "objective, empirical" evidence for you
>>>of an event which occured 2000 years ago?
>>
>>That is your problem, you are claiming it happened: Without
>>evidence, I don't believe it.
>
> You're being lazy and disengenous. Your posts seem to indicate
> you've already made up your mind _without_ looking at evidence
> so I'm wondering just what sort of evidence of an event from
> 2000 years in the past could overcome such obvious unscientific
> prejudice.
The only 'evidence' there is for teh resurrection of Jesus
are the gospels that contradict each others' claims at every
point.
They can't be right, so not only is there no evidence, but the
contradictory lies show us that there was no resurrection.
Now, if it was true, the Jesus Christ was son of god, or even god
himself for you trinitarians, what he said then would be true.
We see he made some particular claims.
Jesus in Matthew tells us the world is going to end (Matthew
24:3)
and that he, jesus Christ will preside over judgment day itself.
(Matthew 16:27-8, 25:31-46) He is soon to "come in his kingdom"
and "Reward all men according to their acts". jesus tells us he
will sit on his "throne of glory", he will be "the King", he will
gather all mankind before him, and sort the sheep and the goats,
the goats, evil men, to burn in hell, the sheep to have life
eternal.
When? In the times and lifespan of "Some standing here" (Matthew
16:27-8. Mark 9). In "this generation" (Matthew 24:36, Luke 21,
Mark 13). In the life time of the high priest at Jerusalem
(Matthew 24:30, Matthew 26:64, Mark 14:62)
None of these big prophecies worked as promised.
And we see some big promises about miracles that have
never worked as promised.
********************************************
Mark 11:23-4
For verily I say this unto you, That
whosoever shall say unto this mountain,
Be thou removed, and be thou cast
into the sea; and shall not doubt
in his heart, but shall believe that
those things which he saith shall
come to pass; he shall have whatsoever
he saith.
Therefore I say unto you, What things
soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe
ye recieve them and ye shall have them.
Matthew 18:19-20
Again I say unto you, that if two
of you shall agree on earth as
touching anything that they shall
ask, it shall be done for them of
my father which is in heaven.
For where two or three are gathered
in my name, there I am in the midst
of them.
Matthew 21:22
And all things,whatsoever ye shall ask
in prayer, believeing, ye shall recieve.
John 14:12-14
12: Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that
believeth on me, the works that I do shall he
do also; and greater works than these shall
he do;because I go unto my Father.
13: And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name,
that will I do, that the Father may be
glorified in the Son.
14: If ye shall ask any thing in my name,
I will do it.
***********************************************
So we have no eyewitnesses and obvious liars.
we have failed prophecy that the end of the
world and judgement day was to be 1930 years ago.
And we have the big and failed miracle promises
showing Jesus blew it out his ass big time and
didn't know what he was jabbering about.
Obvuious christianity is false, its amazing with
so many bibles printed in eth last 100 years that
almost nobody is intelligent enough to really read
one and notice its all failed and stupid claims.
> Can you tell me or are you going to continue evading the
> question?
Read above and tell me that I have evaded any questions
as to the reality of the bible.
Contradictions of the gospels,
Jesus and his apostles and ascension.
Mark 16
Jesus meets Mary Magdalene, then two
unnamed disciples. He appears to the
eleven remaining apostles who are hiding
in a room in Jerusalem. He speaks to them
and then "..after the lord had spoken to
them he was recieved up into heaven."
Matthew 28.
Jesus is never in Jerusalem at all. He sends
word that the apostles are to meet him in
Galilee, "Then the eleven disciples went into
Galilee into a mountain Jesus had appointed
them."
No ascension to heaven is mentioned at all.
Luke 24
Jesus appears to two unnamed disciples,
then to the eleven apostles in Jerusalem.
The apostles are told to stay in Jerusalem until
they are "endued with power from on high".
He then leads them out to a village named Bethany
and ascends to heaven from there.
They return to Jerusalem and are "continually
in the temple".
John 20
Jesus appears twice to his apostles, once in
Jerusalem. Then in Galilee at the sea of Tiberius.
No ascension to heaven is mentioned.
Acts 1.
He appears to his apostles in Jerusalem and is
there forty days. They are commanded not to
depart Jerusalem. At Mount Olivet, Jesus is
purported to have ascended to heaven, and the
apostles return to Jerusalem.
Basically, no two 'gospels' even come close
to agreeing with one another on 'facts' on what
is obviously one of the most momentous claims
ever made. Obviously the claims must therefore
be false. These are not claims of eyewitnesses,
apostles, no anybody with the faintest knowledge
of anything about any of this.
*********
wbarwell
> In article <11khdcu...@corp.supernews.com>, wbarwell
> says...
>>
>>Kurt Nicklas wrote:
>>>>> So you're looking for verifiable, first-person reports from
>>>>> 20 centuries ago, right? Preferably with independent
>>>>> corroboration?
>>>>
>>>>The problem is, all you have are the gospels.
>>>
>>> Who says? You?
>>
>>Yeah, wanna make something of it?
>>
>>What else do you have? Name something.
>
> Easy. Holy Tradition and the interpretation of the Church.
>
> Next?
What do you mean tradition? A pack of lies you
call the gospel. Th etraditional lies nobody
is smart enough to see are lies in the bible.
Not much ofa tradition, is it.
***********************************************
*********Contradictions in the gospels.
Mark 16
Three women go to the tomb. The tomb stone
is rolled away and one "young man" is inside
is sitting on the "right side". The women
are fearful, flee the tomb and "tell no man",
"for they were afraid".
Matthew 28.
Its two women and they find the tombstone in
place. An earthquake happens, an angel descends,
dramtically rolls the stone away and sits on it.
They meet Jesus and hug his feet.
He tells them to tell the apostles to meet him
in Galilee, which the apostles believe and in fact
do, believing the women.
Luke 21.
Its five or more women, and the tomb is open.
inside they find two men standing. They go
and tell eleven apostles who do not believe
them, thinking their story is an "idle tale".
John 20.
Only Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb. No other women.
She finds it open and tells two, not eleven
apostles. Who believe her and race each other to be
first to the tomb.
They leave and she goes back and then meets Jesus.
She is told not to touch him as he is not yet
ascended.
In Luke, the later tale Peter then does go to
the tomb is not in early manuscripts. Its a later
addition, meant to somewhat harmonize Luke and
John.
Matthew has a ludicrous tale of soldiers bribed to
say they slept on duty and the disciples stole the
body. Since sleeping on duty was a capitol crime
for soldiers of that day, this is impossible, no
soldier was sign his own death warrant.
Soldiers are singularly lacking in Mark,
Luke and John. As are earthquakes and angels
rolling away stones and dramatically sitting
on them.
Dubh Ghall
Just as soon as you answer my questions.
(Does someone hate me then? Or do I imagine that someone hates me?
I would be interested to know who it might be.)
You see, kid:
To the best of my knowledge, I have no surviving enemies, and have never had
many enemies anyway.
To the best of my knowledge, no one hates me, or even particularly dislikes me.
The number of people, to whom I am that important, is vanishingly small.
OTOH, I really don't give a damn if someone hates me; It is their problem, not
mine.
So if you could just tell me who it is, that I think hates me, I can "think
about it", and we can get on with the rest of the discussion.
1954 Dead
wrote:
>In article <11khdcu...@corp.supernews.com>, wbarwell says...
>>
>>Kurt Nicklas wrote:
>>>>> So you're looking for verifiable, first-person reports from
>>>>> 20 centuries ago, right? Preferably with independent
>>>>> corroboration?
>>>>
>>>>The problem is, all you have are the gospels.
>>>
>>> Who says? You?
>>
>>Yeah, wanna make something of it?
>>
>>What else do you have? Name something.
>
>Easy. Holy Tradition and the interpretation of the Church.
>
>Next?
Two thousand years of idiocy is still idiocy.
--
"'I’m not meeting with that goddamned bitch,' Bush screamed at aides
who suggested he meet with Cindy Sheehan, the war-protesting mother
whose son died in Iraq. 'She can go to hell as far as I’m concerned!'"
--Putsch, a decompensating drunk
"Grover Norquist couldn't drown the government, so he drowned New Orleans instead."
Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!
Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to.
For the finest in liberal/leftist commentary,
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Don Kresch
<kurtn...@aport2000.ru> let us all know that:
>In article <kljdk1534fl8e69s7...@4ax.com>, Dubh Ghall says...
>>
>>On 6 Oct 2005 15:21:13 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>
>>>>Are you going to try and claim that xtianity, was the first religion to have a
>>>>god, incarnated as a man, killed, and resurected?
>>>
>>>No, just the first and only one that really WAS.
>>
>>
>>Presumably, you have some evidence to support that?
>
>What sort of evidence are you looking for?
Evidence.
IOW: anyone who asks that question is a fucking coward who
wants to sidetrack the conversation.
Don
Don Kresch
<kurtn...@aport2000.ru> let us all know that:
>In article <11khdcu...@corp.supernews.com>, wbarwell says...
>>
>>Kurt Nicklas wrote:
>>>>> So you're looking for verifiable, first-person reports from
>>>>> 20 centuries ago, right? Preferably with independent
>>>>> corroboration?
>>>>
>>>>The problem is, all you have are the gospels.
>>>
>>> Who says? You?
>>
>>Yeah, wanna make something of it?
>>
>>What else do you have? Name something.
>
>Easy. Holy Tradition and the interpretation of the Church.
Not evidence, though.
What else do you have?
Don
Colin Day
> In article <11khdcu...@corp.supernews.com>, wbarwell says...
>
>>Kurt Nicklas wrote:
>>
>>>>>So you're looking for verifiable, first-person reports from
>>>>>20 centuries ago, right? Preferably with independent
>>>>>corroboration?
>>>>
>>>>The problem is, all you have are the gospels.
>>>
>>>Who says? You?
>>
>>Yeah, wanna make something of it?
>>
>>What else do you have? Name something.
>
>
> Easy. Holy Tradition and the interpretation of the Church.
>
>
>
Which Church?
Colin Day aa #1500
1954 Dead
<big_m...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>1954 Dead wrote:
>>
>> The -other- JC?
>
>Julius Caesar. I believe in credit where it is due and Matt has chosen
>rather a nice comparison. The location of the murder is known (or
>agreed upon anyway) and admirers of what Caesar stood for put flowers
>there *to this day*. Nobody, however, has tried to suggest that he came
>to life three days later.
On the other hand, they DID make him a god. I would guess for much
the same reason that Putsch hands out Medals of Freedom to his
administration's biggest fuckups.
Larry Heath
>>No, I really do not hate you, in fact, I really feel sorry for you, and
>>the
>>masses like you that continue to live a life based on dogma, ignorance and
>>2000 years worth of propaganda in the case of the Christian religion.
>
> Nah, you hate me and you think, despite what you say, that I, those who
> believe
> as I do and those beliefs that I hold would be better wiped from the
> earth.
> --
> Kurt Nicklas
> Vocatus atque non vocatus deus aderit
Is you mind so tightly closed that if I told you the sky was blue, you would
have to argue with me about that as well.
Once again I bare you no ill will. I do however bare a great deal of enmity
to the ideas to which you appear to have been so strongly inculcated. Your
mind is so tightly closed and so highly armored with the twisted and
interwoven pieces of fallacious religious dogma that it is nearly impossible
that any substantiated truth could penetrate.
Kurt, I'm really sorry for you.
Later, Larry.
aa # 2216
Mikal 606
"Larry Heath" <lgh...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:gJ6dndYeRse...@comcast.com...
does that mean you will go away, moron?
That *would* be nice.All you pricks who still think you are so fucking smart
Kurt Nicklas
Larry, I'm so very glad you are so very, very concerned about lil ole me.
{snickers}
Kurt Nicklas
>
>Kurt Nicklas wrote:
>
>> In article <vlnhk1haphqqb7snj...@4ax.com>, Dubh
>> Ghall says...
>>>
>>>On 8 Oct 2005 19:01:21 -0700, Kurt Nicklas
>>><kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>>
>>>>>No, I really do not hate you, in fact, I really feel sorry
>>>>>for you, and the masses like you that continue to live a life
>>>>>based on dogma, ignorance and 2000 years worth of propaganda
>>>>>in the case of the Christian religion.
>>>>
>>>>Nah, you hate me and you think, despite what you say, that I,
>>>>those who believe as I do and those beliefs that I hold would
>>>>be better wiped from the earth.
>>>
>>>
>>>What makes you think that you are worth hating?
>>
>> That's a question you need you ask *yourself*.
>>
>>
>
>
>Nobody hates you, you are not worth the effort.
>People just think you are a jerk is all.
LOL!
You're the one who used to call yourself "Sub Genius Pope of Houston"
and you call ME the jerk?
You're a barrel of laughs, billy.
Kurt Nicklas
>
>On 9 Oct 2005 07:50:16 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>
>>In article <2l6ik1516qtnfro92...@4ax.com>, Dubh Ghall says...
>>>
>>>On 9 Oct 2005 03:47:14 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>>
>>>>In article <vlnhk1haphqqb7snj...@4ax.com>, Dubh Ghall says...
>>>>>
>>>>>On 8 Oct 2005 19:01:21 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>>No, I really do not hate you, in fact, I really feel sorry for you, and the
>>>>>>>masses like you that continue to live a life based on dogma, ignorance and
>>>>>>>2000 years worth of propaganda in the case of the Christian religion.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Nah, you hate me and you think, despite what you say, that I, those who believe
>>>>>>as I do and those beliefs that I hold would be better wiped from the earth.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>What makes you think that you are worth hating?
>>>>
>>>>That's a question you need you ask *yourself*.
>>>
>>>Why?
>>
>>Think about it.
>
>
>Just as soon as you answer my questions.
Why? It was you who brought it up, of course.
Kurt Nicklas
says...
>
>Kurt Nicklas wrote:
>> In article <gtfhk1hbs4egql2lg...@4ax.com>, thomas p says...
>>
>>>On 8 Oct 2005 19:01:21 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru>
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>In article <d9ydnYc_r86...@comcast.com>, Larry Heath says...
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>"Kurt Nicklas" <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote in message
>>>>>news:di88m...@drn.newsguy.com...
>>>>>
>>>>>>In article <xv6dnTB0o_6...@comcast.com>, Larry Heath says...
>>>
>>>snip
>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>No, I really do not hate you, in fact, I really feel sorry for you, and the
>>>>>masses like you that continue to live a life based on dogma, ignorance and
>>>>>2000 years worth of propaganda in the case of the Christian religion.
>>>>
>>>>Nah, you hate me and you think, despite what you say, that I, those who believe
>>>>as I do and those beliefs that I hold would be better wiped from the earth.
>>>>
>>>
>>>What gives you the right to tell other people what they are thinking?
>>
>>
>> The 1st amendment.
>>
>>
>>>>Voltaire was at least more honest and less self-delusional than you - "Ecrasez
>>>>l'infame!", he said.
>>>
>>>And Voltaire was not talking about Christians.
>>
>>
>> But you THINK of Christians when you read that quote, don't you, Thomas?
>>
>> {snickers}
>>
>>
>I certainly do.
No surprise to me at all.
>Try not to snicker. In much of the Anglophone world it
>is considered camp.
Atheism is campy.
Dubh Ghall
Dishonest as well, and with the evidence of your dishonesty, just a few lines
above.
Still, not really surprising.
But I suppose that you will deny writing this---
Begin
>>>>>>On 8 Oct 2005 19:01:21 -0700, Kurt Nicklas <kurtn...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>>>>>>Nah, you hate me and you think, despite what you say, that I, those who believe
>>>>>>>as I do and those beliefs that I hold would be better wiped from the earth.
End.