No more Horus and Mithras please

[Anonymous]

There’s at least one atheist poster and one Christian poster who can’t seem to go of the mythological Horus and Mithras. Please give it up. It doesn’t matter if there’s anything to them being precedents to Jesus or not. Believers don’t rely on evidence; they rely on faith.

If they do weigh evidence about religion, they will eventually come out with their faith grown stronger, because that’s how it works with faith. If faith is deep, it will ultimately win out over any doubts, no matter how compelling the common sense or empirical evidence pointing away from faith claims. This is not to say that people with true religious faith are not logical or intelligent. Some are highly educated, hold demanding jobs and have studied religion in depth.

In many denominations, doubt itself is a not a bad thing and people are encouraged to let themselves doubt when questions arise. If a person investigates and weighs the evidence – not just about Horus and Mithras – but any challenge to their faith, and ultimately decides against faith, it just means their faith wasn’t strong enough. People who don’t lose their faith should not revile those who do. They should pity them and pray for them. If they change their minds before they die, Christianity still promises them eternal life.

[Anonymous]

What?

[Anonymous]

I kinda like the H&M discussion, which is only 2 months old anyway. I say this as a history major. Who knew who Horus and Mithras were 2 months ago? Not me. But now that that particular atheist troll has inserted it in multiple threads, it's been pounded into all of us.

The real problem is how to handle trolls who derail threads. The worst of these is the Horus Mithras poster. One option is to ignore, but then the HM claim is standing out there, noobs might think the lack of response means it actually has merit, and other posters find it irresistible to set the record straight, and I can totally understand that impulse. The moderator couldn't care less about derailment of non-Islam threads. So IMO, naming the problem is as good a start as any to dealing with it.

But perhaps we need a more neutral name, given that breathing the words HM just reignites old debates. Back in the day we had a Ranting Atheist (might be the same troll). Possibly that's a more neutral name, while still respectful of all the thoughtful atheists here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There’s at least one atheist poster and one Christian poster who can’t seem to go of the mythological Horus and Mithras. Please give it up. It doesn’t matter if there’s anything to them being precedents to Jesus or not. Believers don’t rely on evidence; they rely on faith.

If they do weigh evidence about religion, they will eventually come out with their faith grown stronger, because that’s how it works with faith. If faith is deep, it will ultimately win out over any doubts, no matter how compelling the common sense or empirical evidence pointing away from faith claims. This is not to say that people with true religious faith are not logical or intelligent. Some are highly educated, hold demanding jobs and have studied religion in depth.

In many denominations, doubt itself is a not a bad thing and people are encouraged to let themselves doubt when questions arise. If a person investigates and weighs the evidence – not just about Horus and Mithras – but any challenge to their faith, and ultimately decides against faith, it just means their faith wasn’t strong enough. People who don’t lose their faith should not revile those who do. They should pity them and pray for them. If they change their minds before they die, Christianity still promises them eternal life.

Maybe the poster you are referring to is just super excited after reading The Jesus Mysteries

[Anonymous]

Horus and Mithras are in the Jesus Mysteries? I'm not bothering to read that book, then. The whole Horus and Mithras thing has been completely debunked so many times here, not by me I should mention, including the PP who gave a nice, concise debunking yesterday. Doesn't matter, the troll keeps trolling. That's what trolls do. That's the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Horus and Mithras are in the Jesus Mysteries? I'm not bothering to read that book, then. The whole Horus and Mithras thing has been completely debunked so many times here, not by me I should mention, including the PP who gave a nice, concise debunking yesterday. Doesn't matter, the troll keeps trolling. That's what trolls do. That's the problem.

I could be mistaken, it's been around 15 years since I read that book. I may actually be confusing it with The Christ Conspiracy...

[Anonymous]

A few weeks ago I tried to deal with the troll via jpegs. Others - I think at least two others - joined in with jpegs mocking the troll. The moderator removed them all. Oh well. Any other ideas for stopping the progress of a thread derailment attempt?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Horus and Mithras are in the Jesus Mysteries? I'm not bothering to read that book, then. The whole Horus and Mithras thing has been completely debunked so many times here, not by me I should mention, including the PP who gave a nice, concise debunking yesterday. Doesn't matter, the troll keeps trolling. That's what trolls do. That's the problem.

hahaha

[Anonymous]

What constitutes a thread derailment attempt? I think many people call troll when someone happens to disagree with them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Horus and Mithras are in the Jesus Mysteries? I'm not bothering to read that book, then. The whole Horus and Mithras thing has been completely debunked so many times here, not by me I should mention, including the PP who gave a nice, concise debunking yesterday. Doesn't matter, the troll keeps trolling. That's what trolls do. That's the problem.

It was debunked?

Really?

Cognitive bias is a bitch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Horus and Mithras are in the Jesus Mysteries? I'm not bothering to read that book, then. The whole Horus and Mithras thing has been completely debunked so many times here, not by me I should mention, including the PP who gave a nice, concise debunking yesterday. Doesn't matter, the troll keeps trolling. That's what trolls do. That's the problem.

It was debunked?

Really?

Cognitive bias is a bitch.

Thread derailment alert! (You know darn well it was totally debunked.)

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:A few weeks ago I tried to deal with the troll via jpegs. Others - I think at least two others - joined in with jpegs mocking the troll. The moderator removed them all. Oh well. Any other ideas for stopping the progress of a thread derailment attempt?

At risk of derailing this thread, the thread you describe was started by an atheist. It is not clear to me that an atheist (I don't think it was the same one, but still) could really troll it. I first became aware of that thread when a poster reported it to me complaining about the images. When I reviewed the thread, it was pretty obvious to me that the images were being used to disrupt the discussion. As the poster above confirms, the images were not being used as part of the discussion, but to mock one participant in that discussion. That is inappropriate.

Whenever posters start derailing threads, you are welcome to report it to me. Whether or not someone is trolling is a very subjective matter, but you can report that as well.

[Anonymous]

Speaking for myself, I was using jpegs to mock a troll who is a familiar character here and who consistently derails discussions on the Religion forum. It doesn't matter whether OP was an atheist, you can still have intelligent discussions, but you can never have intelligent discussions with that troll on the thread. I agree jpegs weren't the best way of dealing with her, but I can't think of any other options.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few weeks ago I tried to deal with the troll via jpegs. Others - I think at least two others - joined in with jpegs mocking the troll. The moderator removed them all. Oh well. Any other ideas for stopping the progress of a thread derailment attempt?

At risk of derailing this thread, the thread you describe was started by an atheist. It is not clear to me that an atheist (I don't think it was the same one, but still) could really troll it. I first became aware of that thread when a poster reported it to me complaining about the images. When I reviewed the thread, it was pretty obvious to me that the images were being used to disrupt the discussion. As the poster above confirms, the images were not being used as part of the discussion, but to mock one participant in that discussion. That is inappropriate.

Whenever posters start derailing threads, you are welcome to report it to me. Whether or not someone is trolling is a very subjective matter, but you can report that as well.

Hi, Jeff -- can you let us know when there is sock-puppeting going on too?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Horus and Mithras are in the Jesus Mysteries? I'm not bothering to read that book, then. The whole Horus and Mithras thing has been completely debunked so many times here, not by me I should mention, including the PP who gave a nice, concise debunking yesterday. Doesn't matter, the troll keeps trolling. That's what trolls do. That's the problem.

It was debunked?

Really?

Cognitive bias is a bitch.

This in a nutshell is why HM keep popping up. The atheist PP has inserted HM strategically into several threads going back several months as though it were brand new and maybe he/she could convince a newcomer that Christianity is merely a pagan cult.

Personally, I am open to any evidence pointing to the pagan origins of Christianity and would find anything solid intriguing.

But the HM stuff atheist PP keeps bringing up is simply weak and if it had been presented in a paper in my college class in Christianity (which was taught by a Jew, who made us read one of the Jesus conspiracy books--forgot which one--in order to point out to us how shallow the history actually was), would have earned an F.

The HM-Christ connection is junk history and as one of the main debunkers on the various threads, I am still amazed that the atheist PP cannot bring her or himself around to understanding that the connection is simply not there and is still moved to say that denial of the connection is evidence of cognitive bias.

I will say I have found the debunking highly entertaining and am secretly hoping that the atheist PP will come up with some new pagan angles to Christianity that we can scrutinize.