mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) (04/15/85)
Eeek! 586 lines in that last response. I'm going to prune this one. Including a fair amount of "argument by exceptionally verbose tirade that is not particularly relevant to the point." In article <290@cvl.UUCP> david@cvl.UUCP (David Harwood) writes: > > The disciples were probably fully aware of JC's fraudulence. They worked > > together as a religious cabal, with JC as leader and the apostles as > > shills. In the prophet biz, you have to talk up your main man. > > Do you honestly believe this? It is one thing for early Christians > to give up their lives for a delusion, something else for them to give up > their lives for a fraud, when they could have easily disavowed their > profession. I have no doubt about the religious sincerity of the apostles, > regardless of whether they were mistaken about some things. I think fraudulence is the best hypothesis explaining JC and the apostles. I doubt that the apostles planned on giving up their lives for their beliefs. Any more than politicians plan on giving up their lives for their parties. They gamble. They may lose and be assassinated, imprisoned, etc. That you have no doubt is besides the point: there is no worthwhile evidence. > Do you honestly believe this, or are you angry with my reply, or > with your own inability to reply without making accusations? Why don't you read a textbook on argument. I recommend "How To Think Straight", by Robert Thouless. Then you will understand what is wrong with your replies, including the above sentence. > You should believe me, at least, when I say that I have no > motivation to decieve you; I simply feel that I should reply to your > accusations (which are hardly "agnostic" as you say; I was "atheist" > for most of my life, and I was far more temperate than you in imputing > the intentions of others.) If you impute the intentions of others then > you cannot listen to them fairly. I have no doubt of your faith. You may feel much more certain than I do. However your certainty and the vehemence or mildness of arguments has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you or I are right or wrong. Saying either is significant is a fallacy of argument. I do not impute your intentions, and would like it if you not impute mine. When I impute the intentions of JC and his apostles, I am trying for a simpler goal: I am trying to create a consistent hypothesis. Then I invoke Occam's Razor to support my hypothesis over yours. > Please believe me when I say that I have read almost none of the > "2000 years of interpretation" and that I do question assumptions. The ideas of Christianity (and Judaism) that you are learning today are the result of 2000 years of interpretation. Even attempts to hearken back to the ideas of the original Jews are heavily influenced (reinterpreted) by our different culture and knowledge of other theological thought on the subject. For example, early Jews might have ignorantly believed things that theologically as taboo nowadays as the Manichean herisey. (I can't think of a good specific example offhand.) As for your standards of questioning assumptions, I suspect they're lower than mine. You'll just have to be explicit in your reasoning. > (In the first place, my motivation for > replying to you was annoyance about your very glib accusations about > "fraud" and "charlatan", so you can expect emotional response as well.) Emotional response is likely to weaken your argument. And my description of my hypothesis is not "glib": it is no-nonsense and straight forward. Or if you wish to use the other definitions of glib, then I'll take it as a compliment of my style of argument. > ... it is unfair for you to > characterize others as religious "charlatans" because they fail to do what > you expect.... > The point is that our expectations may be irrelevant because of > our ignorance. But you simply insist that somebody do what you want, and > make accusations if they do not, when it is more reasonable to try to > consider what are the their claims first, which may have nothing to do > your expectations of them. The simple fact is that Jesus never claimed to > do anything on demand. This does not mean there were not miracles for > some; simply not for you. (Just as you will never walk on the moon, for My point is that the behavior I expect of frauds is refusal to perform in a convincing manner. This behavior (and other excuses) is documented in the Bible. > > Just maybe, then, the authors of other sacred texts know something YOU > > don't understand. Or perhaps I do. Hitler probably knew things we > > don't understand. Does that mean we have to believe everything he said > > unskeptically?) > What does Hitler have to do with this? He was an atheist, by his > own account. Are you being outrageously insulting, likening your skepticism > about my views to that about Hitler's? > May the Lord make you ashamed of this. I deleted a bit of your response for terseness. The purpose of my paragraph above was not to accuse you, but to show your style of argument to be fallacious. You argued that "perhaps the authors of the Bible knew something you don't, so you should believe them." This is called the argument of special pleading: you use a form of argument that you wouldn't permit an opponent to use. A standard way of combatting this form of argument is to turn it about until your opponent yields his original point. (See pages 157-160,178 in "How to Think Straight".) Apparently you just got mad instead and went off on a side track. > ... but why should Matthew, > believed to have been written post 80 AD have included a story for the > reasons you say, so to rationalize his failure to do miracles, when Matthew > is believed by experts to have been written many years after Jesus' death; > and, besides this, they have no obvious self-serving reason to talk about > his failure at all, especially after he was dead, which would hurt their > purpose. The apostles needed rationalizations for their not working miracles also, even after JC's death. They may have claimed miracles for themselves: it has been a common practice. Look at the hundreds of Catholic saints and their claims of miracles. Mentioning times when JC refused miracles can serve alot of other purposes for the apostle/showman. It can tell how wise JC appeared to the crowds because he kept them enthralled without miracles, it can tell how he essentially was able to outface the political and theological bigwigs of his day, and a host of other exaggerations. The psychology of building a cult following has a great deal of latitude for hand-waving explanations. > I agree that they are vague in the minds of the readers, just > as are the Jewish scriptures, which are somewhat intentionally "cloudy" > about some matters. But they were not vague in the authors' minds: who > were somewhat intentionally ambiguous. How do you know that? Lots of authors write lots of vague drivel that they themselves acknowledge later to be drivel. Yet critics frequently applaud such stuff as insightful. I consider the Bible to serve as a mirror: the depths people find in its voluminous writings are mostly reflections of their own thinking, rather than intentional meanings of the authors. That's why there are so many conflicting interpretations. > First we have Hitler, now McCarthy. Listen to me: you are defending > yourself when no one thinks any of these things about you, or others who > are skeptical. The only thing I said about you was that you accused Jesus > (implicitly the Gospel authors),for no very justified reason, of being > "fraudulent" and "charlatan". Furthermore, at the beginning of your latest > reply above, you refer to the apostles as a "fraudulent", "religious cabal", > and "shills". YOU may not say these things about me, but others certainly have. I've been told several times that I am a tool of Satan on the basis of the passages we are discussing. Compared to historical treatment of skeptics, I've been extremely lucky. Give me a break! > You are the one with "conspiracy theories" everywhere. Methinks thou > do protest too much. Just as psychiatrists can diagnose paranoia without being paranoid themselves, so I can detect fraud and its mechanisms in the bible. Those include mechanisms common to conspiracy theorists. > You miss the point -- supporters of "fraudulent psychics" do > not portray their failures after they are dead, for no good reason. Read "Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science" by Martin Gardiner for information on fraudulent psychics and their ilk. A recent event of similar nature is the refusal of L. Ron Hubbard to appear in person before a court to determine whether he is alive or not. Watch to see what Scientologists make of that in the next few decades. "See what a great man he was? He didn't knuckle under to the greatest power the world has ever known!" There may be "good reasons" for not doing even mundane tasks, and boasting of that failure later. > Are you arrogant? You sure are if what I say is true. Are you foolish? You sure are if what I say is true. > On the contrary, I probably have more respect for their religions > do you; I am not in the business of converting others who are already > full of good will. They don't need my help. Once again, you completely misunderstood a demonstration of your special pleading. > > What appalling parochialism. The religions of empire builders have always > > spread with the empires. Christianity just happens to be the religion of > > the Western Imperialists who have dominated the world for the past 4 > > centuries. Islam became widely accepted in all the cultures the Moorish > > conquored, displacing Christianity in some. And Christianity is not the > > only major religion with charitable love. > I am a Christian, quoting Jewish scripture. As far as I'm concerned, > Imperialism is the enemy of Christianity, by definition; Christ was crucified > by the Empire, with a little help from its religious supporters. You are totally ignoring the point that Christianity has spread in the path of western imperialism. > I'm amused to hear about "parochialism" from a self-professed > "agnostic" -- such hypocrisy. Where is the hypocrisy? > > > As I say, there are miracles all the time, but not as you imagine, > > > and not for you, unless you will someday want to get down on your knees. > > > > I say there's some marvellous land for you in the everglades: give me your > > money first. > > Is that all you think about $$$$$$$$$$ Can you say "non-sequiteur"? Good. I knew you could. :-( -- Mike Huybensz ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh