Okay. Sorry. I'd like to have discontinued, but Chris raises points I
have to answer.
Christopher A.Lee <calee@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> said :
>>> Feel free to provide as much evidence as there is for Elvis, Diana
>>> etc.
>
> Which I notice you didn't do.
No indeed. Nor did I claim that I could. Instead, I explained why it
would be irrational to expect the same quantity of evidence, if any at
all.
> Christians talk about "the evidence" but never provide any.
>
> Which wouldn't even matter if they hadn't insisted everybody had to
> take it seriously.
They can insist what they like - it makes no difference to me. They are
free to believe what they wish, and to express their beliefs to me. I am
free to disregard their beliefs as irrelevant to me.
> No. It is a rationalisation in the sense of an excuse not a reason.
>
> Do you take the same attitude to all the other hero figures of the
> other religions?
Generally speaking, yes - and with most other mythological figures as
well, if those characters are fundamentally human in nature. I'm not so
inclined to treat stories of krakens and hydras in quite the same way.
The stories of Robin Hood may well have been based on a real man -
possibly a number of real men. The same goes for King Arthur. Perseus
could easily have been a real man. Adam and Eve, though certainly not
the first two people on Earth, might well have had their roots in real
people.
Or none of the above may be true. We just don't know.
Now, if you said to me that everything in Le Morte d'Arthur was absolute,
literal truth, then I'd ask for more evidence. If you told me that, say,
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves was historically precise in every detail,
then I'd want independent sup****t for that claim - something that Kevin
Costner had nothing to do with.
Perseus rode around on a winged horse? No, I don't think so. Unless
there's something you can offer to show that such beasts existed?
And were Adam and Eve the parents of all humanity? Seems to contradict
what we know about human evolution - so any chance of some backup for
that claim?
The figures we read about in stories, myths and legends do some
remarkable - often impossible - things. But that's because they're
heroes. Myths and legends can and do grow up around real people - which
isn't to say that they're all based on real people, but that they CAN be.
Because there's nothing impossible - or even challenging - about the idea
that A Person might have existed.
So like I said, if the question is "did a historical person upon whom the
Gospel stories are based actually exist", the answer can perfectly well
be "maybe; maybe not". And this answer, despite the fears of the anti-
religious lobby, does *not* constitute an endorsement of Christianity.
If the question is "did this person perform miracles", the answer,
logically, would have to be "there's no evidence to say so, and the idea
of miracles goes against our current understanding of the universe,
therefore probably not".
> Nobody is denying anything.
Some certainly are - the idea that "we don't know whether a historical
Jesus existed" can be extended to "a historical Jesus did not exist".
Some people have the idea that Christianity can only be challenged
through absolute denial that there could be any spark of truth anywhere
within it; and that's simply not necessary.
> There is simply no reason for non-Christians to believe what
> Christians say.
I agree, obviously. If I didn't agree with that, I'd be Christian. The
difference is that I don't take their saying it as an attack on my
freedom not to believe it. They're welcome to say it, if it makes them
happy.
> If they kept it to themselves there would be no problem.
The same could presumably be said of any given opinion, particularly
those that might irritate us as I know Christianity irritates you. But
how far does freedom of expression go, and how far *should* it go? Once
you prohibit Christians from speaking about their beliefs, what group
gets gagged next?
> But instead they insist on telling us all about it.
>
> So we ask for reasons to believe them.
>
> And there aren't any.
So we don't believe. That's one thing, and I have no problem with it.
My problems start when people in opposing a religion make claims that
amount to matters of faith in themselves - as I would consider the claim
(and wear the cap only if it fits) that there was no real man who served
as the historical basis for the mythological figure of Jesus Christ.
> The problem with this is that early Christianity (as described by
> Paul) didn't have a human Jesus, just a divine Christ.
But it had the figure - and if we discount the possibility that he might
have been the divine Christ that Christianity describes, then the
question is whether that figure was made up from whole cloth, borrowed
from another religion (many pagan religions had death-and-resurrection
gods, as we know), or whether Paul simply took existing oral accounts of
the activities of a man and totally misunderstood or misrepresented them.
> Why don't you treat all the other baseless claims the same way?
Because not all baseless claims are the same. Take the question of
whether there is life on other planets.
Some people would claim that life definitely exists elsewhere. They
would say that it's foolish to think we might be the only oasis of life
in the universe. This is a flawed claim, because they're still only
stating a belief. It's not something that they can know.
Others might say that there's no other life out there, because we've not
seen evidence of it. No EM emissions, no physical sightings or contact,
nothing. That's also a flawed claim, because it presumes to draw an
absolute conclusion from a simple lack of information: no evidence means
no other life.
The only correct conclusion at this point is that we just don't know.
Saying as much doesn't endorse one viewpoint or the other - it's merely
being honest. I would treat this question as a 'maybe-maybe not' matter.
I don't know that there is, but I don't know that there isn't - and since
there's life here, it's therefore not unreasonable to imagine that it
*might* exist somewhere else. It can't be confirmed; it can't be ruled
out.
I'd treat the question of a 'historical' Jesus - a man, and possibly a
bit of a rabble-rouser, but NOT a god - as the same sort of question.
Maybe; maybe not. Not unreasonable to suppose either way - but we can't
really know.
But if you made the claim to me that aliens hovered over your house,
beamed you up and took you to their home city on Venus (a common enough
claim amongst 1950s 'contactees'), then I'd have serious doubts unless
you could provide some cracking good evidence. After all, Venus is the
hottest planet in the system, its atmosphere is cru****ng, corrosive and
toxic, and the planet as a whole is completely hostile to any kind of
life we know - plus, we've never detected any indication of a
technologically-advanced society on that world. Therefore, there's no
50-50 balance in probabilities here: the probability that life exists on
Venus - especially life capable of interplanetary flight - is minuscule.
Therefore, unless you can provide evidence, I can assume your claim is
false, and that there is no city on Venus.
And the question of whether any historical Jesus might have been God is
similar: if it's true, then it requires science - and much of the rest of
the world - to completely re*****s the current understanding of how
things work. If it's true, then all bets are off. At that point, we
can't claim to know *anything*.
So you see: not all baseless claims are the same; therefore, I don't
treat them all the same.
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