Zeitgeist Addendum

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i couldnt care less what i "come off as". what evidence is there for jesus? other than there having existed a bearded man in those days.
what defines jesus?
:b

its really VERY lame. okay, he didnt walk on water, he wasnt born of a virgin, he wasnt born on the year 0, he didnt do ANYthing the bible says he did (cus that stuff is physically impossible)

so whats left?

a guy with a beard. are we arguing wether or not there existed a guy with a beard? jesus - the person in the bible - never existed. sure there existed a guy with a beard, however... im not disputing that at all. show me the evidence that says that there was something MORE than a guy with a beard.

christianity didnt rise up from a mere personality-cult untill centuries later, and untill then, any stupid "unrelated text" could have been written. believing that there really existed A guy, who was important even after we strip him of ALL his "miraculous" s**t, is just gullible.

*sigh* What evidence is there for Ramses II? Other than there having existed an Egyptian man in those days. You aren't making any sense here. Your argument is meaningless.


A man named Jesus who led a movement among Jews sometime in the first century AD, provided the basis for the religion that would develop into modern Christianity, and was executed by crucifixion, existed. This is historical fact. Jesus as a spiritual teacher existed. You can claim his teachings are BS. You can claim that stories of his miracles recounted in the Bible are either complete fabrications or gross exaggerations. But to deny his existence is just outright stupid. Serious historians would laugh you out of the room, and that includes radical atheists.


What the hell, man? Check your history for once in your miserable life. Christianity established itself almost immediately after Jesus's death. It was small, and certainly a fringe group, but it existed as a religion from very early on. Even if you are assuming that Christianity itself is bunk, claiming that Jesus is not important is foolish. Even if you believe he was just "a guy with a beard," you have to acknowledge that not every guy with a beard founds the largest religion in the world. I'm a guy with a beard, and I don't have 2 billion people worshiping me as God. The teachings Jesus put forward have been enormously influential in world history. To deny this is simply impossible.

your only arguments are "everyone else thinks so, and so should you"
you dissapoint me, especially considering username and avatar and signature :b

christianity established itself immediately after christ, because the LATER CHRISTIANS say so. they also say he was born of a virgin.

you find it impossible that history has been rewritten, do you?

SHOW ME THE GODDAMNED EVIDENCE
SHOW ME THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROOF.

DO NOT:
tell me how many OTHER people believes some ancient myth.

HIS TEACHINGS???
"be nice" "dont kill" "dont drink too much" "dont steal your friends gf" COME THE HELL ON...

i ask again, remove the SUN AND SEASON symbolism, remove the MIRACLES, remove the VIRGIN, remove GOD, remove MOSES, remove the three stupid kings, remove ALL the BS, and what are we left with?

a rebel who was crucified. was he crucified allone? no. he was crucified along with a heap of other misfits, and after he was taken down, other misfits were crusified on the same goddamn cross.
this was ANCIENT ROME a time FULL of rebels, wise-asses and prophets.

jesus is an amalgam of VALUES AND SYMBOLS.

SHOW
ME
SOMETHING
SUBSTANCIAL

and by that, i mean something other than "everyone else says he's real"

The "You call yourself Orwell, so you should buy into my conspiracy theory" card doesn't work on me. Look, the historical evidence is there. You can go look it up if you want, but I don't have the burden of proof to have to demonstrate what overwhelming historical consensus already confirms.


Um... no. Because history says so. Because we have records of Romans dealing with early Christians. This is not disputed by anyone who has ever cracked a history book.


Oh, ok then, every piece of historical evidence behind Jesus, Muhammad, and Siddartha is an elaborate forgery. Look, you're not a historian. You're just making stuff up as it suits your own particular agenda. What evidence do you have that anything has been rewritten?


I think someone else already mentioned archaeological evidence for Siddartha. I don't care to look up Muhammad, but there's plenty of documentation showing he existed. And as for Jesus, we have clear records of a movement he inspired that was active shortly after his death, as well as discussion of him in Roman records. Honestly, can you show me any evidence that William the Conqueror existed? Of the type you are demanding from me?


I wasn't referring to any myths. A historical character called Jesus existed. That is well established, and not a point of debate.


A rebel who was crucified and inspired the largest religion in the world. That makes him a significant historical character.


LEARN
TO
SPELL
AND
TURN
OFF
YOUR
CAPS
LOCK


Look. You evidently don't understand how history works. If someone is mentioned in documents that are traceable from their time, they exist. Case closed. Honestly, Occam's Razor destroys alternate explanations for Jesus. If you take an atheistic view, you can say his miracles did not occur and were made up later by his followers. But that doesn't eliminate the Jewish teacher who started a new movement which would come to dominate the Western world.

There are still arguments as to who killed JFK and why. And there were many witnesses, some still alive, plus photo evidence. The claim of solidity for an historical supposition two thousand years ago is a form of mild insanity. That a huge number of people are so afflicted is no proof since the state of humankind has clearly demonstrated its insanity throughout history and into current happenings.

History is a set of lies agreed upon.
Napoleon Bonaparte

But no one denies that JFK was killed. And none of the witnesses actually saw the shooter, nor do we have photos of a shooter firing a gun at JFK. As I've repeated over and over again: on the historical record, people may well reject Biblical accounts of Jesus's miracles. But that he existed at all? That's a fairly simple claim.


To the extent that history from such a time is knowable. IE the historicity of Jesus rests on the same evidence as anyone else from the same time period. The difference is that no one really has an agenda of trying to prove that Pontius Pilate didn't exist.


History is bunk.
Henry Ford

Good that we seem to have some form of agreement.

That's not a very good argument against archaeological proof. Buddha dies, his ashes are distributed amongst a variety of clans and stupas, which are inscribed at the time with details of the relics internment at these sites. The sites are provably from the period the inscriptions say they're from - and some have been opened to reveal said artifacts. We also have highly detailed accounts - again provably from the time of Buddha - that say that these same Stupas contain the relics.

I don't think anyone in their right mind would believe that the people who built the Stupas and interred the remains made up the story so they could have a 3 day bash. Bit lame really to think that's the case.

STF

There is a lumberyard quantity of the "true cross" preserved throughout Christendom so these relics should raise some doubts.

orwell, you have done nothing but evade and evade my original request:

evidence
EVIDENCE
evidence
evidence
evidence
and
edivence

there. typos, caps, and everything else.

e v i d e n c e.

and YES, in the TRUE SPIRIT of CRITICAL THINKING i DOUBT (at best) EVERY historical person who is not supported by evidence.
the jesus-character in particular, is SO obviously an amalgam of symbolism, that i DENY his existence, untill someone brings me:

EVIDENCE.

dont you think its a bit of a convenient coincidence that he justsohappensto coincide exactly with pre-existing myths regarding THE EXACT SAME MESSAGE?
conspiracy conschmiracy. i pick my knowledge carefully, and i am NOT going to drool and drone on to popular belief ONLY because it is popular. i demand evidence.

conspiracies that are unfounded by evidence, i give the same treatment as myths and religions: denial.

inspiration isnt evidence. what about l ron hubbard? he has inspired lots of people. by your logic, that makes everything he says true.

we could argue about every single ancient character, but this time, its jesus.

all you give me is "theres tons of evidence out there, find it yourself" oh really? cus you say so? i have never heard of a _single piece of evidence EVER_ and ive been paying attention. where is this "overwhelming" ammount of evidence you talk of?
links please.

Oh no! We numerous inscriptions and authors confirming that Augustus existed, Germanicus existed, that he was by a man of Gens Claudia named Tiberius how adopted Germanicus, which had a son Gaius, and an brother Claudius, we even a inscription regarding Pilatus, we know from numerous inscriptions, authors etc. a lot of people living in this time, even we have some their writings well preserved, including the naughty poems of Catullus, have a good inside into family affairs of a lot of this people, even can speculate regarding their character. We know quite exactly what Augustus thought about the writing of Ovid and how Caesar treated Catullus.

We have numerous gravestone, graffiti - a lot of sources providing us with names, dates etc.

BUT: All non-biblical sources pointing to Jesus were written decades later and and pointing only indirect into his existence.

The Venus Project is a rather interesting read.

I get the feeling that people are talking past each other here.

Historically, even sources decades after the birth of Jesus would not likely make up the existence of the person. To say that an entire person was made-up seems questionable. I think that is what Orwell's claim is, because after all, I think even a skeptic will grant that there are 2 sources of evidence on Christ's life(a common idea in skeptical scholars in the 2 source hypothesis). Document Q argued to be shared by 3 synoptic Gospels would be one source, the Gospel of Mark would be another source as it is sometimes considered the earliest Gospel. Given such accounts though, even if questionable historically, there would seem to be enough evidence to say that a guy named Jesus likely died on a cross.

The issue that ZEGH is likely bringing up here, and seeming problematic in doing, is the idea that Jesus in the Bible likely isn't the real story to any extent. This is the same idea as Robert Price, who argues that the Jesus in the Bible isn't real, he does not say that Jesus does not exist, but rather says that we do not know who Jesus is. The problem is that Dr. Price is usually strawmanned as the guy who says that Jesus did not exist, and ZEGH is getting caught into this problem with Orwell. The issue is that Orwell and ZEGH seem to be making different claims, Orwell claims that it is ludicrous to argue that a man named Jesus didn't die on a cross, ZEGH is claiming that there is no evidence supporting the existence of the Christian conception of Jesus, that Jesus could just be a man who died on a cross, but that the Christian tales are just myths. That is why I think that there are people talking past each other on this issue.

Multiple documents referencing a man named Jesus. That he was made up after-the-fact is an unnecessary complication that would be pruned by Occam's Razor. I'm not saying you have to believe the Biblical view of Jesus. I'm not saying I can give you irrefutable proof that he was the Messiah. I'm saying he existed.


I *highly* doubt that this is the case. Everyone accepts a number of things as true simply on the authority of others. If you did not, you really would know essentially nothing. No one can point to the evidence for everything they believe to be true.


Are you illiterate? I never said "everything Jesus says is true." I said that he is an important historical figure. He existed, and his existence mattered for world history. L Ron Hubbard, meh, a fringe movement, he'll likely be a footnote in 20th-century history.


Instead, let's argue Homer. Show me any evidence that Homer ever existed.


He was referenced in multiple ancient sources.

Yes, AG is probably correct, we seem to be talking past each other.

It is not as much of a waste of time as Zeitgeist, but I consider the technocratic movement to usually be a bit of a waste.

1) I don't think they have honestly dealt with the field of economics at all, while still speaking mostly on that topic. For instance, of a particular interest to these folks would be the work of Friedrich Hayek, as he is their major intellectual opponent and has criticized at length their view of the economy and their view of society as a whole. Even neoclassical economics poses major problems for such a movement, given that their calculations on economic efficiency end up positing a rather large amount of these calculations, to the point of being undoable by supercomputers, and that is a major issue given that neoclassical models are openly considered useful oversimplifications. If emergent market solutions are better informed than centrally planned solutions(a thesis that modern economics generally accepts) then technocracy is wrong-headed from the start.

2) They know very little about social sciences. You can tell this by their writings as they never ever ever seem to address human nature or anything like this at all, only their dream of reconstructing society. I once looked at a book by a technocrat that put too much effort in defining how physics worked. The issue is that knowing physics does not mean that proper organizational structures for dealing with human beings are known, that human structures are recognized, that culture is ever factored in, etc. Heck, their writings don't even seem to recognize the existence of a plurality of values and that human systems are based upon a compromise of these values, and thus evaluate them using a problematic metric based upon the existence of that problem alone. If the technocrats tended to be psychologists, sociologists, economists, historians, political scientists, philosophers, or anything like that, then their efforts would seem to make sense as they would address the issue of society better, but they are just engineering-minded individuals with a scientistic point of view, and because of that they seem to be dangerously naive.

Occam's razor is useful in analyzing scientific theories and mathematical propositions but the damndest things happen in history and the human mind is intricately and frequently insanely complex so Occam's razor really should not be applied here.