Forum Index
»
Religion
What do Atheists believe?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
This is the part that always befuddles me. As elementary school kids, we all learned about, for example, the Greek gods and goddesses, and had no trouble seeing how they were conceived to explain natural phenomena - Apollo's chariot pulls the sun across the sky, Zeus is responsible for lightning, etc. Other cultures had different gods and explanations. But a lot of those same people, while recognizing the explanatory connection between ancient religions and natural phenomena, are absolutely convinced of the veracity of their own faith. The dichotomy is striking, and makes no sense at all. |
Anonymous
Some people make the obvious connection as children, some, like me, make it later and some never make it at all. I loved learning about the greek gods and simply didn't make the obvious connection to the Christian god and the saints. Not so curious or introspective at the time, I guess. |
Anonymous
I was raised as an every Sunday churchgoing Christian and read Edith Hamilton in 4th or 5th grade and started to wonder then. I was done after I wrote a paper on relics for my 7th grade history class at my Christian school. |
Anonymous
|
The difference between the Greek and Roman myths and Christianity is that Jesus walked the earth. At least 2 historical sources speak of Jesus and have been accepted by most historians and scholars as true.
Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, written around 93–94 AD, includes two references to the biblical Jesus in Books 18 and 20. The general scholarly view is that, while the longer passage, known as the Testimonium Flavianum, is most likely not authentic in its entirety, it is broadly agreed upon that it originally consisted of an authentic nucleus, which was then subject to Christian interpolation or forgery.[37][38] Of the other mention in Josephus, Josephus scholar Louis H. Feldman has stated that "few have doubted the genuineness" of Josephus' reference to Jesus in Antiquities 20, 9, 1,"the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James" and only a small number of scholars dispute it.[39][40][41][42]. The Roman historian Tacitus, in his Annals (written ca. AD 115), book 15, chapter 44.[43] describes Nero's scapegoating of the Christians following the Fire of Rome. He says that their founder was named Christus (the Christian title for Jesus), that he was executed under Pontius Pilate, and that the movement of his followers, initially checked, then broke out again in Judea and even in Rome itself.[44] Some scholars question the historical value of the passage on various grounds.[45] Historian Michael Grant wrote that: If we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned.[46] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus |
Anonymous
|
Anonymous
Their existence is not questioned. What about their divinity? |
Anonymous
What's your point? It just means that Jesus existed as a historical figure. It doesn't mean that any of supernatural stuff is true. Ron Hubbard also existed in real life. Does that give more credibility to claims of Scientology? |
Anonymous
|
No evidence of Greek and Roman gods in actual historical writings.
Jesus, yes. Greek and Romans gods no. You’d be surprised the number of people that do not know Jesus is not just a religious figure, but also is accepted by non- Christian scholars and historians as a man who actually walked the earth. |
Anonymous
That’s your logic for believing??? |
Anonymous
Of course not. But Jesus existed, as a man. There is no denial of that fact acceptable to scholars and historians. Just a fun fact. |
Anonymous
That's not the only reason religion developed. Religions were also ways of enshrining values and teaching those values. People get fixated on whether the stories are literally true. But I'm not sure that's what matters. In many cases, the stories (stories of gods in polytheistic religions and stories of Christ and saints in Christianity and Old Testament stories in Judaism and stories in Islam) are ways of communicating and passing on values and ideals. |
Anonymous
And controlling the masses. And making a buck. |
Anonymous
Respectfully, that is not undisputed. In fact the few sources for that information are highly questioned by some. And, of course, it remains impossible to prove something (or someone) did not exist. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Josephus |
Anonymous
What's that you say? Religions were used to enshrine and pass on values and ideals? That would mean, wouldn't it, that those values and ideals pre-existed religion, right? Huh. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be snarky with you. But there are multiple posters in this thread, and in this forum, who believe that religion is the *source* of values, not a means to pass along values, and who simply don't believe that anyone who is not religious (or is [gasp] an atheist) can hold the same value system as a religious person. But under your framework (which I agree with), those values were one of the sources of religion, not the other way around. |
Anonymous
|
The first references made to Jesus in literary documents other than Christian writings are those by Hellenist and Roman historians who lived during the second half of the first century or the first half of the second, and therefore not long after the events took place.
The most ancient text in which Jesus is mentioned, albeit implicitly, dates back to about the year 73, and was written by a stoic philosopher from Samosata in Syria called Mara bar Sarapion. He refers to Jesus as the “wise King” of the Jews, and perhaps in reference to the antithesis of the Sermon on the Mount, remarks that it was said he promulgated new laws (Matt 5:21-48). He observes that having put him to death, was of no benefit to the Jews. Today, researchers believe Josephus’ original words to have almost coincided with those retained in an Arab version of this text, quoted by Agapitos – a tenth-century bishop of Hierapolis. He says the following: “At that time, a wise man called Jesus, admirable in his conduct, was renowned for his virtue. Many Jews and other peoples were his disciples. Pilate condemned him to death by crucifixion. But those who had become his disciples did not renounce their discipleship and told of how he appeared to them alive three days after the crucifixion, and that because of this, he could be the Messiah of whom the prophets had said such marvellous things”. ? Some references to the figure of Jesus and to his followers’ deeds are to be found among the work of second-century Roman writers (Pliny the Younger, Epistolarum ad Traianum Imperatorem cum eiusdem Responsis liber X, 96; Tacitus, Anales XV, 44; Suetonius, The life of Claudius, 25.4) Jewish sources, particularly the Talmud, also contain allusions to Jesus and to certain things that were said about him, making it possible to substantiate some historical details using sources which are not suspect in terms of Christian manipulation. |