Is religion the worst thing that has ever happened to us?

when exactly did the surgeons remove your brain and replace it with a bible?

 

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Sure, Jesus never existed, and Plato didn't either.

 

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While it is true that people must necessarily be the catalyst behind any force of change, the hue and cry that "the idea of religion isn't the cause, it's the people" is a red herring. Ideas do not exist as living entities capable of moving the world, thus this statement is a fallacy. What I'm trying to say here is that even though an idea cannot literally be blamed for anything, the absence of the idea would probably be a fundamental change that would have encouraged more rational thought in many radical individuals, such as the late Jerry Falwell, Osama bin Laden or even Hitler.

Theists like to claim Hitler was an athiest and his motives were athiestic in nature. This is incorrect. Hitler himself wrote in his book his biblical inspiration for his attempted destruction of minorities.

While the organization of roman catholicism did not literally start WWII, they are not blameless completely and certainly Vital et al cannot state that religion was not a factor. You yourself Saquist put forth their participation in the war.

My caveat though was that I stated in an earlier response that religion was probably a necessary step in our development...so it may not be the absolute worst thing that's happened to humanity...the fact that it remains and is so powerful a political movement however is still a dangerous precident. It's about time we let it go.

 

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plato actually wrote something himself and exists in contemporary histories outside of those created by his "followers".

 

How do you know "he" wrote it?

 

Icy...this "how do you know" challenge is a favourite of theists, as if everyone is subject to fantasy existence.

Plato can be corroborated by multiple existing historical documents, his own writings, Diogenes Laertius' official records, Socrate's writings etc. Now while these records are hardly the pinpoint accuracy that Google.com is for example

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the multiplicity and parallels of said documents would lend to the truth of the claim of Plato's existence.

There is however, no official record of a Jesus Christ DURING his own life. Even those who wrote about him after tended to say Jesus revealed himself through "divine revelation".

Personally, I'm pretty sure that a character, most likely the leader of early christianity, existed and was incorporated in the Bible. However, this book hardly constitutes a historical record; most of it has no supporting independent documentation (heck most of it is quite fanciful). Even the most meticulous record keepers of the time had written of no 'saviour' that went around performing miracles. That would have been noteworthy would it not?

Point is Icy, are you going to challenge everyone who doesn't agree with you on every single person that they quote? Maybe no one existed before us right now Icy...we could have appeared just this second with false histories implanted in our heads...

 

ok, you're right, i don't know 100% for certain that "he" wrote it. point taken. however, there is little about history that is 100% true. as a result, you must rely on what evidence exists now, attempt to assess its credibility, and then also assess the chances of the thing having actually taken place. in Plato's case, this is not so difficult. Plato is referred to in many contemporary histories and oral traditions of the time as the writer of the works that have been attributed to him throughout history. beyond this, scientific tools such as linguistic theory and textual analysis have been used repeatedly on the oldest copies of his works available in order to determine both continuity and authenticity. as a result, it is widely agreed that with a few exceptions involving later additions or alterations to the copies available, that those works were all atleast written by the same person. plato is also a philosopher whose arguments represent a way of thinking that is natural and addresses concepts that are now obvious to most people. he did not found a religion or espouse a set of extremely controversial ideas, he just put on paper what many people had already pondered and debated the best ways to approach certain societal problems. he was a man and did not claim to be a god, although some legends about him did (ironically) claim that he was born of a virgin. i would argue that because plato has these specific attributes, there was far less of a reason to perpetrate lies about him or to give him credit for things he had not done. to me, that is at least somewhat convincing.
in addition to that, i have little interest as to whether plato actually existed or not, because his legacy is one of using logic and evidence to confront problems presented by sociey and morality and human nature. he does not require blind faith for his ideas to be effective and relelvant, and above all does not assert that his is the only possible way for humanity to correctly progress. this makes him relatively less controversial than jesus and much more convincing.

 

The difference between Plato and Jesus is that no one is making wild, magical claims of supernatural feats with regard to Plato. Indeed, the world of philosophy would be just as well off if it were shown that Plato was a thought experiment of a later author.

Jesus, on the other hand, is different. There are extraordinary claims being made about his existence that don't hold water. They're complete and utter poppycock and are very much consistent with the hero/prophet myths of many, many fictional figures. There is simply no good reason to believe Jesus existed as the character portrayed in biblical mythology. My life doesn't need to depend upon the existence of either Plato or Jesus. Neither does yours, you just refuse to admit it.

The comparison, therefore, is a logical fallacy and one that the deluded often bring up. But Plato hasn't any extraordinary claims associated with him, and his existence isn't necessary for his philosophical opinions to be considered valid. The Jesus myth, however, does depend upon the existence of the central character to be valid.

 

Not necesarily my friend, I myself have found many things in the teachings of Jesus that have make me aware of a reality some people do not perceive because of ignorance.

If someone comes with proof to me that Jesus never existed, I don´t really care, because the things I believe and learned from his teachings have been proven over and over again by prophets that have been prosecuted and killed every time it happens in history, and continue happening up to this day.

I mean, if Jesus never existed, what can you tell about all the Masters that have come to teach love to mankind? there are many, impossible to dismiss as myths, because they exist in our current reality.

So Jesus may have never existed, although the teachings DO exist (even if it came from other "Incendiary"), and if you believe the teachings because of personal experience, then you don´t care if anyone tells you the contrary.

If a person´s faith tremble because someone tells them Jesus never existed, then that faith is indeed in a poor way.

 

Although my faith would not change if someone tells me Jesus never existed; he would have to have a very good point in doing so. I mean, by the first century AC, there were more than 40 Gospels, talking about Jesus, Josephus, the Roman storiator talks about Jesus, Pilatos talks about Jesus.

Then by the second century AC, many Christians were being prosecuted because of their faith, and died because they did not deny the Christ. By the 3º century AC, the Romans could not deal with the increment of Jesus followers, and decided to make a political maneuver to turn the people to their side of the fence.

The thing is, thousands of Christians died because they did not want to deny Christ in the first 3 Centuries of our times, I don´t see how that story could be made up. You can make your theories all you want, for me, Jesus existed, but his teachings were somewhat different from what most Christians believe.

 

wisdom seeker: you need to seek some wisdom, try here,
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?p=1246870#post1246870
here have been numerous threads on whether a jesus character existed, none have shown he does, you'll need a lot more evidence than the bible.

 

We have Roman historiator Josephus, and Pontius Pilate.

What about the early Christian writtings that have been found lately? They were the religious studies of groups of Christians prosecuted and killed by the Romans about the 3ª century AC, but they managed to hide the scriptures in caves.
So we don´t only have the "official" new testament, but more scriptures that were hidden because of prosecution, I believe this last ones have more credibility than the "official" canonical gospels.

 

Well... it just goes to show that one can accumulate evidence (or lack of it) to support almost any theory. However... quoting from Wikipedia on the 'Jesus Myth'.

I believe the onus is on proponents of the 'Jesus Myth' to prove the existing references to Jesus as a historical character (including both non-Christian sources and the Gospels) are false. Tough assignment!

 

the mentions of jesus in josephus's history are highly disputed, with most of the evidence pointing towards their falsity. here is a cursory explanation of what the issues are with the texts -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

 

charles_cure, whatever scholars decide won´t have any impact in my beliefs, why do you insist in proving that Jesus is a myth?? But you can never prove that all enlightened beings are a myth, even the ones that are currently alive and walking ammong us...

 

im not proving that jesus is a myth, just that he wasn't important enough at the time to be anythin more then a half a mention in someone's notebook, and maybe not even that. i was also attempting to point out that christians looking to prove their belief that he was the messiah consciously attempted to alter real histories so that they could coalesce with their own claims. in my view, this in and of itself makes the church dishonest enough where i cannot find good cause to believe any of their accounts of history.

 

Almost exactly as tough as proving that god exists or does not exist.

However there's possibility and there's likelyhood. Given that most people that existed around that time were found to have been spoken of in multiple written records, but Jesus is only found in the bible, it is likely that he was at least exaggerated if at all he existed.

Jesus has come to be one of the cooler characters in South Park tho...

 

While its obvious that one can never 'prove' that the biblical Jesus existed, there is also no good reason to accept that he did as described in the bible, particularly since the attributes applied to him are nearly identical to hero/prophets of previous myths (i.e. the Jesus proponents of the time recognized a good story and used it); and those attributes have never been demonstrated to be genuine qualities (healing blind, exorcism, walking on water, being a zombie, etc.).

Moreover, there is no historical accounts of the guy outside of biblical mythology that don't depend on biblical mythology. The "historical" references you mentioned in this or another thread have been thoroughly debunked elsewhere -including several threads in this very forum.

 

a matter of faith isnt it?

"No one can question the faith of others, cause no human being can judge the ways of God" HIM Haile Selassie I

 

Yes, Jesus is the Master.