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Author | Topic: Reconstructing the Historical Jesus | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: And the reason that I asked is that Crashfrog's own arguments seem to require him to propose some known figure.
quote: Obviously it is NOT "exactly the same". For instance Crashfrog is the one proposing a vague hand-wavy idea, while arguing against a plausible naturalistic explanation. And the criteria I am asking Crashfrog to meet come directly from his own arguments against my position. If they cannot reasonably be applied to his alternative, it is for him to explain why.
quote: Actually he hasn't explained adequately even given his own misunderstanding of parsimony. He has to explain why his explanation assumes fewer people than a historical Jesus - and he hasn't done that.
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Jon Inactive Member |
He has to explain why his explanation assumes fewer people than a historical Jesus - and he hasn't done that. And not just people, but premises in general. Edited by Jon, : clarity Love your enemies!
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Panda Member (Idle past 3735 days) Posts: 2688 From: UK Joined: |
PaulK writes:
1) 'People made up the jesus character' is not "a vague hand-wavy idea". It is a very definite defined idea. Your understanding of it may be vague, though. Obviously it is NOT "exactly the same". For instance Crashfrog is the one proposing a vague hand-wavy idea, while arguing against a plausible naturalistic explanation. And the criteria I am asking Crashfrog to meet come directly from his own arguments against my position. If they cannot reasonably be applied to his alternative, it is for him to explain why. 2) 'People made up jesus character' is "a plausible naturalistic explanation" - so there is nothing wrong with choosing that argument over the less parsimonious argument you are putting forward. 3) You are expecting someone to identify the originator of a religion when discussing the historical jesus - and when they say that they can't, you'll shout "I WIN!".But you have also failed to identify the originator of the religion - instead you have asserted it was jesus and then claimed that an historical jesus existed, while providing no evidence. 4) Your claim that arguments need to be applied equally is seriously flawed.If you said unicorns existed, I could expect you to show me them. If you said unicorns did not exist, then I could not expect you to show me 'a lack of unicorns'. You are asking to be shown 'a lack of historical jesus', when it is you making the claim that an historical jesus exists.
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Panda Member (Idle past 3735 days) Posts: 2688 From: UK Joined: |
cavediver writes:
I'm sure you have a paper somewhere that actually gives the calculations for 'pure bollocks'. No, Crashfrog has simply demonstrated yet again (and now you also) that 99.9% of all attempts to use parsimony in an argument result in pure bollocks.Would you care to define what metric you are using to perform the necessary comparison?
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1489 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
But nothing about Christianity becoming a major world religion has anything to do with the historical Jesus. Then whoever this "Historical Jesus" is supposed to be, in what possible sense is Christianity based on him? How can your individual be the "Historical Jesus" if he's not in any way the basis for the Jesus mythology? What's the likelihood, for instance, that Santa Claus is based on a 30-year-old clean-shaven man who hates kids, doesn't make toys, and is named "Lou"? If your Historical Jesus wasn't Jesus-y enough to be the basis for Christianity then how can he be the Historical Jesus?
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1489 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Of course we can, to the degree that we can identify their influence and reconstruct them. So what's the evidence for this "reconstructed Q", and what does it say about Jesus independent of the Gospels?
What we can't do is use the fact that we don't have these sources NOW to support a claim that they never existed, no matter what the evidence. I never claimed that they never existed. I simply claim that you can't use sources about which almost nothing can be known as evidence for your position, for the very simple reason that as "evidence" you can state that it very conveniently states whatever you need it to state, and I can't inspect it to judge whether that's the case.
Here's a hint Crash, when you accuse people who come to conclusions you don't like of being dishonest - just BECAUSE they come to conclusions you don't like Don't get ahead of yourself, Paul. You've yet to demonstrate anything about the supposed "Q source", least of which that it lends any support at all to your position or that it even ever existed.
For instance we don't NEED to assume that other people exist at all. Solipsism is very parsimonious by your standard. And if there's no real need to explain why we see other people then solipsism wins. So your version of parsimony simply doesn't work. This is nonsensical, just another example of how defending the Historical Jesus requires someone to take all leave of their senses.
Because they exist and they are relevant. How are they relevant if they're not to be believed? How is a wrong argument at all relevant? How does it defend anything? How does it lend support to any conclusion? It doesn't, which is why I'm amazed you brought it forward. Am I now supposed to take the role of both sides, and defend your arguments, as well? Sorry, but I decline. It's clear to me which side has the lock of rational skepticism and which side is about taking ancient religious texts at credulous face value, relying on imaginary evidence, and substituting invective for argument: yours.
If you want to insist that there are no extra-Biblical references to Jesus then you are wrong. Obviously people have talked about Jesus outside of the Bible. So that's another claim that you've utterly misrepresented. My contention is that there are no independent references to Jesus; there are merely references by people taking Christian claims at face value. Tacitus is one such reference, as I've abundantly demonstrated.
There's nothing that implies that Tacitus did not personally believe that Jesus existed. Yes, there is - the fact that he's referring to the state of Christian belief. Just as someone summarizing Star Wars refers to Darth Vader, but we know that he doesn't believe in the existence of a real Darth Vader.
Not when it's an accident, as it may be. An "accident"? How does that work, exactly? Regardless, I'm prepared to accept that the forgery was accidental.
Plenty of people lived and died without leaving any records that survived to the present day. But plenty of people did not become the central figure of a major world religion. That makes it rather different. Any attempt you make to argue that the Historical Jesus was "just folks", just a regular dude, nobody that anybody paid any particular attention to, undercuts your case that he actually was the Historical Jesus. Because if he was "just folks" then why would anybody bother to make him the central figure of a religion? It makes no sense.
The Gospels and Paul's epistles are such evidence. No, incorrect. The Gospels and Paul are a claim that there was such a person. What is the evidence that supports that claim?
Obviously the real story would be how Christianity ACTUALLY began. Right, but why would anybody know that story? The early Christians would have believed that they were following someone who had actually lived, so the fact that Christianity had been started based on a figure that didn't exist would have been unknown to Christians, so who would possibly have written it down? There's nothing to be replaced. The people who worship Jesus Malverde and John Frum, in the present day, are unaware that these are mythical figures. To them they're as real as they come and the "real" origin is identical to their mythical origin. Certainly nobody in the faith has recorded any story about how a guy made up John Frum or Jesus Malverde, so there's no "true origin" that came to be replaced by a mythical origin; there's only the mythical origin that faith adherents promote, and the unknown "they were lied to" origin that nobody - not least of which the liar - would ever have bothered committing to paper. Why would they? They were trying to get people to believe a lie! Do you just not understand how lying works, Paulk? I'm surprised - you've done quite a bit of it in this thread.
If you have exaggerated and embellished to glorify an individual the last thing you do is replace him with an imaginary creation. Don't be retarded. That's not at all what we're talking about. We're talking about the proven fact that it's a lot easier to embellish and glorify a fictitious individual who supposedly lived a while back somewhere over there - distant enough in the First Century to be beyond all capacity for fact-checking by the local audience - than it would be to embellish and glorify a real man with feet of clay. Stores always spread faster and have greater verisimilitude when they're decoupled from real people but coupled to a real place and time; that's why your cousin's campfire stories always claim they happened to a friend of his friend, not to himself, but not that they happened in a galaxy far, far away.
A lot of the exaggeration and embellishment wouldn't even be conscious falsehoods, just the usual failures of memory. So too might the origin of Jesus! It's just as reasonable that the first Jesus storyteller thought he was remembering something that happened and embellishing it. The best storytellers start by convincing themselves. Frankly, it's yet another obstacle to the "Historical Jesus" position - I think it overestimates the degree to which people of the First Century could have remembered anything well enough for the Christianity of the Gospels to truly be based on any actual events.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1489 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Someone founded Christianity. Yes, but perhaps not explicitly or intentionally. Maybe they didn't even ever know they'd done it.
It must less extraordinary that they, rather than a historical Jesus, would found Christianity. It is by definition less extraordinary, since it's more common for a religion to be based on lies than on truth.
It must be more parsimonious to conclude that they founded Christianity It is by definition more parsimonious, since we know that liars and storytellers have always existed and in great numbers, but we don't know that Jesus existed.
They must be better documented than Jesus, including independent non-Christian sources. No, not at all, because there's no requirement in the Mythological Jesus that the first Christian mythmaker be anybody in particular. It is necessary in the Historical Jesus position that the Historical Jesus be Jesus, specifically. Be one specific person. Ergo the documentary requirements are higher. We don't care who the first Christian mythmaker is, because First Century storytellers are thick on the ground. Could have been anyone. But the Historical Jesus actually has to be Jesus. That's a considerably more extraordinary claim, for which no evidence - extraordinary or not - has ever been presented.
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cavediver Member (Idle past 3665 days) Posts: 4129 From: UK Joined: |
I'm sure you have a paper somewhere that actually gives the calculations for 'pure bollocks'. Many, several written by myself. But sadly they are all a bit specific and not in as general terms as required here. Perhaps now is the time...
Would you care to define what metric you are using to perform the necessary comparison? In specifc terms, that's easy - as already explained, it is simply the absence of the required metric when talking out of one's arse concerning parsimony (and Occam's Razor of course). For more details and calculations in the general case, please see [1]. [1] C. Diver - "On Bollocks" - forthcoming
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1489 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
No, but they do take self-serving documents and try to use certain methodologies for extracting from them what can be called historical. And what about when documents are so plainly self-serving, fantastical, and ahistorical that literally nothing of any merit, except the most general of claims - like, "the Earth existed in 1 AD" - can be reliably extracted? Surely it's possible for a document to be so untrustworthy as to tell us almost nothing at all about history?
Like Mohammed. And possibly Socrates (I'm not sure of the exact dates of the writings about Socrates). If the evidence for the existence of Mohammed and Socrates is truly as poor as it is for Jesus - which I doubt - then I'm prepared to accept that they didn't exist, either. I've made no study of it. But there's a lower burden of evidence for the existence of Socrates since he's not the focus of a major world religion, and isn't venerated in any way except as a teacher that Plato and some other guys really liked. It's not extraordinary to suggest that a guy might have been taught by another guy, might really have learned a lot, and might therefore have developed an enduring respect for that teacher. On the other hand, it really is extraordinary to suggest that a guy became the focus of a major world religion, when so many major world religions are based on completely fictitious characters. Defending that point requires an extraordinary level of evidence that simply hasn't been provided.
I was answering your question as to why the resurrection isn't commonly held to be historical. Right. It's a more extraordinary situation, so it requires more extraordinary evidence. Correct?
Perhaps you can explain how a document about a person written within decades of their life can be analogous to a 7-year old's beliefs about a person written thousands of years after their life. If you're taking claims at face value, the person making them doesn't matter. If you're not, if you're applying skepticism and discernment about whose claims have credibility and whose don't, then you're not taking claims at face value. So then the question is - can we trust the Gospel writers when they claim that Jesus actually existed? Since we can't seem to trust them on anything else, since we already conclude that the Gospel writers will say whatever they think they need to say in the service of making Christianity the One True Faith, the answer is clearly "no." As a source they're completely bereft of credibility - no more trustworthy than a child's views about Santa Claus.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: Obviously you missed the part of the discussion where Crashfrog was using "it was made up" as his sole explanation for everything. It has got a bit further but only because of the work of Crashfrog's opponents.
quote: You are assuming here that all plausible naturalistic explanations are equal, aside from parsimony. This is not true. I've already explained why you are wrong about parsimony, and you are clearly object to my even asking Crashfrog to show that he has a better explanation on his own terms. Rather odd that, if your position really were rational.
quote: Now you are being dishonest. The only reason for asking for the name is because Crashfrog's arguments imply that the founder of Christianity ought to be a known historical figure. And of course, we have the Gospels, Paul and the possible references in Josephus for evidence.
quote: Of course I am NOT asking for that at all. I am asking for an alternative explanation, not a disproof. It seems clear that you do not have an explanation which involves a known historical figure, which in itself calls into question your claim to be more parsimonious, even on it's own terms. It is also clear that you have no reasonable explanation of why Crashfrog's arguments would not work equally well against any alternative explanation that you might bring up. So why poke your oar in instead of leaving it to Crashfrog ? Do you believe that he doesn't have an answer either ?
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1489 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Would you care to define what metric you are using to perform the necessary comparison? It's hardly necessary to make an exact calculation to arrive at a comparison about what is more parsimonious than another thing. Occam's Razor has never come with a metric. Very many people are liars and storytellers, but only one person could possibly have been the Historical Jesus. Thus it's more parsimonious to have a model that includes only liars and storytellers, than one that has to include liars and storytellers plus the Historical Jesus. It's self-evident. I'm surprised that it's contentious in any way, except that Jesus's defenders have once again taken complete leave of their senses. Historical Jesus is nothing more than the unnecessary chocolate sprinkles. (Thanks, Rrhain!) Everything about the Jesus mythology and the rise of Christianity can be completely explained with nothing more than recourse to the human tendency to tell stories and lies.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1489 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
And the reason that I asked is that Crashfrog's own arguments seem to require him to propose some known figure. They do not. They simply require that liars and storytellers be present in the First Century world. Since both the Historical Jesus and the Mythical Jesus agree that at least some parts of the Jesus mythology are lies or stories, that's already been stipulated. Mythical Jesus doesn't require that any specific liar or storyteller be identified; but Historical Jesus does require that a specific person be identified - specifically, Jesus. Ergo it's less parsimonious, more extraordinary, and subject to a greater burden of proof which has not yet been met. Not even close.
He has to explain why his explanation assumes fewer people than a historical Jesus - and he hasn't done that. I have repeatedly done that. The Mythical Jesus assumes one less person than the Historical Jesus - specifically, Jesus. Therefore by definition it is more parsimonious.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1489 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Obviously you missed the part of the discussion where Crashfrog was using "it was made up" as his sole explanation for everything. This is a false claim.
. The only reason for asking for the name is because Crashfrog's arguments imply that the founder of Christianity ought to be a known historical figure. No, they do not. They imply only that if Christianity has an actual historical basis that figure must be a known historical figure. Historical Jesus proponents have already determined who that figure is - Jesus - but they've yet to present any evidence for his existence or for anything about him that would connect him to Christianity. They're simply reasoning backwards from taking the claims of Christianity at face value, and proposing post-hoc excuses for how Jesus could exist but there wouldn't be any evidence of it. But if Christianity doesn't have a basis in any history except for the most general - i.e. Romans existed, they crucified people, Jews didn't like that, etc. - then it's not necessary to connect it to any real historical person. If, like other religions, Christianity is based on a figure who was invented, perhaps to purpose or perhaps not, then there's no reason to identify the specific individual or individuals who did so. We just have to know that there could have been liars and storytellers in the First Century, and it's already been stipulated by both sides that there were. Because the Mythical Jesus proposes the least unnecessary entities, it's the more parsimonious position. This is clearly convincing to anyone who has not had their brains scrambled by the effort to defend the indefensible.
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Phat Member Posts: 18310 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.1 |
crashfrog writes: Writing took a lot of time back then. It was not as quick and easy as it is now. Why would the authors go to so much trouble to create and support a myth? Whats in it for them? They were to a man persecuted...i see no examples of an author or supposed author benefitting personally from spreading the story.
We're talking about the proven fact that it's a lot easier to embellish and glorify a fictitious individual who supposedly lived a while back somewhere over there - distant enough in the First Century to be beyond all capacity for fact-checking by the local audience - than it would be to embellish and glorify a real man with feet of clay.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: Of course, inventing the story is not quite the same as founding Christianity. But if you can come up with a plausible explanation which doesn't include a founder who knows what he is doing, then please produce it. And the evidence.
quote: Of course that is just a vague generalisation. Being a bit more specific, Muhammad, Buddha and Joseph Smith all existed - as well as others. Fictional founders seem to be something of an exception.
quote: If we are going to compare like with like, what aspect of "being Jesus" is not known to exist. Jews exist. Cult leaders exist. The Romans crucified people. We can go on. Is your claim to parsimony based on anything more than the vagueness of your explanation ?
quote: But I am not asking for anyone that specific, just a documented historical figure who plausibly founded Christianity (and by that I would mean the leader rather than someone who was merely an inventor of stories). Or at least an explanation which explains WHY we should expect documentation for Jesus, but not for your alternative leader.
quote: The only thing that seems to be "extraordinary" about it is that it is more specific than your vague proposal. There is nothing extraordinary ABOUT the historical Jesus, apart from being the first leader of a religion that happened to become very important (and that more to do with people like Paul and Constantine than him). And the same would apply to ANY proposed founder of Christianity. So again, all you have is vagueness, but vagueness is not a strength in an explanation.
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