Jesus did not die on cross, says scholar

Gday awake,

Originally posted by awake_and_aware
reply to post by Kapyong

 

If a book tells something about a historical person, although you cant (yet) find any proof about that person, then to be sure this was so, you analyze the Book.

Hey - that wasn't me, that was the other guy :-)

I think Jesus is a myth.


Kap

reply to post by Kapyong


Apologies! my mistake -that was in response to skajkingdom. Peace

For Awake ... and Kapyong:

Here are my posts as I mentioned before.

Read:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

and

www.abovetopsecret.com...
and

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by skajkingdom
For Awake ... and Kapyong:

Here are my posts as I mentioned before.

Read:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

and

www.abovetopsecret.com...
and

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

No evidence there at all.
Just more preaching about the Koran.

You clearly do not know what "evidence" is.

I'm not asking for MORE claims and PREACHING about the Koran.
I'm asking for EVIDENCE from OUTSIDE your Holy Book that supports it.

But you keep failing to deliver any.


Kap

reply to post by awake_and_aware


I'm sure as an apparent atheist/materialist your appreciation of objective fact is paramount, the basis of all your rational decisions in your rational existence. Claims regarding morality/ethics are no more a product of rationally deduced objective fact than any religious/spiritual experience, belief or claim, historically documented or not. Even popular atheist Richard Dawkins, despite his railings against religion as "evil", admits as such.

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. Richard Dawkins in River Out Of Eden (p.155.)

Further:

The position of the modern evolutionist is that humans have an awareness of morality because such awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation no less than hands and feet and teeth. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. Michael Ruse, The Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics, in the Darwinian Paradigm


By embracing illusory morals/ethics and discarding subjective and unfalsifiable religious/spiritual beliefs, an atheist/materialist is rejecting one set of "delusional" beliefs (lacking basis in objective fact) for another. Spiritual/religious experiences are meaningful and have value because human beings decide they do, and your decisions on what subjective social and moral value you give them are your own.

If you believe having the values of another forced upon you is wrong, it would be reasonable to expect that you would avoid doing the same in return. As such, using YOUR beliefs to criticize/condemn Christians, Muslims, etc. for condemning others based on THEIR OWN beliefs is contradictory and illogical. Naturally, this doesn't make you a bad (immoral) person, just inconsistent in your application of reason.

On topic:

I would argue that regardless of whether Christ was crucified on a pole or cross, the emotional and spiritual impact of the account remains the same. I doubt a minor detail would make much difference in the hearts of the faithful.

reply to post by Kapyong


Clearly you did not read my posts or are deliberately refusing to open the eyes.
Have it your way. Soon we shall see.

Originally posted by Sinter Klaas
Well... You tell that to the Swedish guy then.

He apparently did a whole study on it.


When people look at your reasoning the first thing they might say is, "were you there " or something. ( No ofense )

Well, actually this is something I studied quite extensively in college, as well and with one of the top professors in the field, probably (well published and respected, studied Divinity at McGill and Harvard).

Anyone can "do a study," that doesn't automatically make their study terribly accurate. Near as I can tell from what I read of this one, the guy pretty much ignored the fact that crucifixion was an extremely common way of executing people in the Roman Empire of Jesus' time and doesn't seem to offer any compelling evidence that he WASN'T killed that way.

He wasn't there either, none of us were. There really is no reason to suspect Jesus wasn't crucified, though. Also, based on textual analysis of some of the Gospels, many very serious scholars believe that there were eye-witnesses to some of these events who contributed their own reports to the writing of the Gospels, or at least their observations were directly passed down to those who were involved.

The Gospels were written between 40 and 100 years after the events depicted. At 40 years, someone involved in the writing could easily have been a direct eye-witness. At 100 years, not so much, but there were often family traditions and some very specific details and names of witnesses that seem to have little reason for being mentioned, except as a way to "prove" to those at the time of their writing that these events occured. The word of a respected, still living relative or even the witness themselves, carried a lot more weight in largely illiterate societies. When scholars have studied oral traditions they have found that the quality of information passed on that way seems to be just about as good as what gets written down.

Originally posted by dusty1
Jehovah's Witnesses for years have believed that Christ died on a stake or tree.

Entirely possible, but I don't think it matters too much either way. The cross is a later symbol of the church, early Christians used the symbol of the fish. In the end a symbol is just that, a symbol that represents and reminds people of certain ideas about their faith, philosophy, etc.

[edit on 7/1/2010 by LifeInDeath]

I came across these two videos yesterday and thought they might make a good contribution to this thread. I find videos like these interesting.

reply to post by talonreaping


Appreciate your response, but not this one, i would say we are NOT equal at all and i am not a hippocrit, i didn't ever force my believes on anyone, i only challenged other peoples and demanded a logic path to that belief.:-

If you believe having the values of another forced upon you is wrong, it would be reasonable to expect that you would avoid doing the same in return.

When their beliefs often change someone's life, and often not for the better, even if they think it is, it closes the mind down, accepts "God's" rules (and mindless theories like man was made out of "mud" or "blood clots") when they have clearly been written by man, as no one has yet proved with objective evidence (i.e real truth) that god exists and wants you to live your life a certain way, Why would this only apply to man. what about insects - And should the starving/sick people in 3rd world countries believe such a theory of a caring personified universal being?

I don't want to stop anyone believing in what they choose but i will certainly challenge them if i fail to see reasoning, rationalism behind that belief.

I respect Deists and Agnostics point of view, they are not claiming to be more righetous, they do not know what God wants and they don't claim to just because it says so in a book. They don't opress people, they don't try to dictate gods wishes or interests because it is unknowable, due to the unfalsifiable nature of this said entity.

God is what man wants God to be, in Islam god doesn't want you to eat ham, in christianity he wants you to respect the sabbath and condemn homosexuality, Mormans are allowed more than one wife. All i am asking is how these so could organised religions seem to know what God wants, even though it was written by man. Did god speak to these scribes, "oh yeh, write down that i don't want people to love each other if its going to be gay" Its not right, its clearly MAN-MADE, CONTROL posing as "FAITH" - If your faith is that god may exist, and you don't think he interferes in human affairs, i.e. a Deist or an Agnostic then you are not trying to control people, you are not telling people what to believe, so why should anyone have a problem with that?

Its a logical fallacy and the religious will play on that, like i said - if you want to believe in a story that restricts you in life and makes you servile then go do that, just don't teach our children unfalsifiable theories, don't teach them to be servile, don't teach them slander non-believers or condemn homosexuality because THEY think its an aboniation, not God, the people who wrote that specific scripture.

Teach them that respect is gained, not commanded, teach them that empathy and sympathy are great tools for human compassion and morality.

I ask for logic and truth, absolute truth, not man-made truth, not subjective truth, i want objective truth. Objective truths like the earth is round, spherical like and not flat - That is fact and truth and will not suddenly be changed when we realise its wrong.

Christianity and Islam do little side steps when they realise their scriptures condoned genocide, killing off people without faith or a different faith, stoned women, enslaved black people - And now they have to do a side step because they realise everyone thinks they're evil as the Devil they claim.

Again, pick and choose your religion carefully but if God does exist, and he does have rules, expect damnation (hell) as a matter of chance, the chance that you picked the wrong faith, the wrong religious with the wrong rules

Remember, i'm not claiming to know what God wants from us, just because it is written in a scripture.

God made man - why is there so many different religions, why has he created imperfect man, left people to die and rot with disease, causes these so called earth earthquakes? Why would God let people create opposing religions if he was speaking to the Scribes who wrote the rules. IT MAKES NO SENSE.

I simply will not stand to be called a sinner and a wrong-doer just because your bible says so and i don't think anyone else should, i believe myself to be compassionate and moral.

It's easier, more logical to suggest that man has made God, i'm not saying there isn't an enimating force in the universe that destroys and creates things, that holds magnetism/gravity in place, that heats and cools the planet, that holds the laws of physics as we understand it in place, the "God" particle is often talked about in science - but it's irrational to personify god, and claim you know his wishes.

People can't believe that i would oppose their beliefs but when it involves children and the separation of the human species into opposing groups then i think that is wrong, there's an evil at work wanting to split us apart. Again, have your thoughts and ideas about God, do not preach them onto other people. I am not preaching anything here, so don't claim i am a hippocrit or i am doing the same, i'm asking for evidence, reason to believe, and there is none.

Takes more courage to oppose a belief than to mindlessly spout a belief that doesn't make sense or fails completely in logic. Will i go to hell? Have i been a bad person? In the eyes of Christian - yes, in the eyes of a Muslim - yes, in the eyes of a Morman- yes - I have been living my life wrong according to them - how ignorant is what i would say.

Sorry friend, but we disagree. Peace anyway and Good luck.


[edit on 1/7/10 by awake_and_aware]

So does it matter if he was murdered on a cross or a pole? Religious people will believe what has been ingrained into them since being indoctrinated. Especially if they were converted at a young age through baptism. It starts from that point on.

Originally posted by AlSayr

What will it take to believe the Bible is the "truth"?
How about some PROOF?
How about Jesus' skeleton, DNA, SOMETHING?
How about SOMETHING other than Christians #ing excuses for everything?
How about something other than using a FICTIONAL BOOK as your ONLY line of defense for EVERYTHING that is tossed at you?

You seek a Proof of what. How can you ask a Proof for something you do not even understand and, you criticize ancient scriptures that are miss-used by a sect of man that do not know themselves what they are relating.
Some in the church know it very well, but they know also that once you tell the truth, the whole secret falls and the money stops flowing.

Bible is not fiction, it is pure truth and science. But, do not forget it was written in time that ended not even 200 years ago, times in which the church and cults had the power and killed anyone who openly spoke about science other then the one the church was revealing to the dumb.

Humans have been split in dumb and wise in all times and if you read all the crap they believe in today, it brings you to ask yourself, "how is that possible? can mankind be that dumb in 2010.".

The Bible is a book where the truth, the real science is written in a long story for small brains, somewhat like the baby, cabbage and stork stuff.

By letter and number coding, in hebrew and greek, they wrote in branches in between the lines and crossed over many pages the whole wisdom and science of the ancients, the whole roots of Kabbalah, philosophy, astrology, astronomy, physics and so on, all what any religious cult had taken and burnt the way they did with the archives of Alexandria.

Today, there are hundreds of books that teach you all this in clear text. So leave the bible to those who want to believe in that story, let them pray.

But, if some day you want to know what the bible really reveals, use your brain and read the symbols.

The best way to make money is to tell people what they want to hear.
You make a good publicity for such people as I see on your comment.
Believe in Lord Maxwell, Tsarion, Ike, Jones and Co. I bet you will become happy sooner or later and find out that it was just an illusion, like all in this universe.

reply to post by eurocrates

Bible is not fiction, it is pure truth and science

bahahahahahahah, yeh and the earth is still flat, we were made from "dust", women were made from the rib of men, a talking snake persuaded the first man and women to eat an apple which got them kicked out of paradise, you must not wear mixed fabrics ahahahahahahaha

You are the biggest hippocrit for posting that as your signature. i'm actually laughing as i type.

reply to post by awake_and_aware


i only challenged other peoples and demanded a logic path to that belief

Let's hold this in mind for a while shall we..

When their beliefs often change someone's life, and often not for the better... when they have clearly been written by man, as no one has yet proved with objective evidence (i.e real truth) that god exists and wants you to live your life a certain way,

Who decides what is better? You? The government? "God"? You are subjecting another to your values, imposing your subjective rationale of Good/Bad, Better/Worse on their lives. There is no objective evidence to be examined, no laboratory to evaluate the truth/falsity of your judgment according to the scientific method.*

Your "rules" have clearly been written by man also, so why are they any more or less reliable than those of religious people? Because they refuse to acknowledge that those rules are the product of the human mind and are fallible or disagreeable to some? I've not seen you make the same admission regarding your "rules", though it's no less true.

They don't opress people, they don't try to dictate gods wishes or interests because it is unknowable, due to the unfalsifiable nature of this said entity.

Atheists, deists and agnostics, on the whole, are no more or less moral than religious people. Atheists have oppressed/killed to promote political ends, they've killed to satisfy personal grudges and so on.. An atheist, deist, or agnostic with a desire to control/oppress/kill people will do so for reasons they consider worthwhile, from the purely selfish to those based in the "best of intentions". Like a religious tyrant, these reasons are usually hard to justify with little to no objective facts behind them, just personal values and ambition.

If your faith is that god may exist, and you don't think he interferes in human affairs, i.e. a Deist or an Agnostic then you are not trying to control people, you are not telling people what to believe, so why should anyone have a problem with that?

So, you don't have a problem with belief in God per se, just when someone uses it to dictate your life? What about those that would dictate to you absent a belief in God? You'd (hopefully)criticize their behavior on an individual basis, correct? Why then do you tar the entirety of Christianity, Islam, religion etc.. with the same brush? Why not criticize specifically those destructive behaviors you dislike by whom they were committed, rather than condemning every follower for the acts of some?

Despite what you may think there are Christians who are sympathetic to homosexuals, even some who are themselves homosexual/bisexual, thus slapping the same stereotypical "intolerant" sticker on them is inappropriate. I suppose it's easier to attack a stereotype than an individual's action but it doesn't make it more intellectually sound or honest.

I ask for logic and truth, absolute truth, not man-made truth, not subjective truth, i want objective truth. Objective truths like the earth is round, spherical like and not flat - That is fact and truth and will not suddenly be changed when we realise its wrong. .. i'm asking for evidence, reason to believe, and there is none.

Where have you provided evidence that your values are objectively true and not subjective like a hypothetical Christian's? I'm not looking for a reason to believe, I just want to see it. You ask for objective proof to validate someone else's moral values, what about your own?

Will i go to hell? Have i been a bad person? In the eyes of Christian - yes, in the eyes of a Muslim - yes, in the eyes of a Morman- yes - I have been living my life wrong according to them - how ignorant is what i would say.

Labeling them ignorant based on your subjective moral "rules" does not make you the better person or any wiser than they are.

reply to post by talonreaping

Who decides what is better? You? The government? "God"? You are subjecting another to your values, imposing your subjective rationale of Good/Bad, Better/Worse on their lives. There is no objective evidence to be examined, no laboratory to evaluate the truth/falsity of your judgment according to the scientific method.

Have you any idea what your talking about. Do you understand that American is founded on the notion of separation of state from church. Do you know why? religious views and regulations are absolutist, there's no challenging them. No one can say what is good and bad, they are subjective. Cannabalism is seen as ok in some tribes if the people die, eating ham is seen as "bad" in some religions. No one knows what really is truely bad and truely good. Humans can interact with empathy and understanding, sharing and communication for the better, - Do we need to worhsip an invisible entity with rules to get along? No.

Do we need rules, or just education and understanding. Teachings of actions and consequence, empathy and sympathy. Certainly we will punish those who kill without reason, not in defense, certainly punish those rape women, but punish people who want to have sex certain way? or wear certain close? or not believe in a God? punishment for that is just insane. We don't need to be opressed by some cosmological dictator, in fear for a eternal afterlife of pain, what evil that is, simply suggesting that to a human is enslavement and dilusion of the mind.

In western, secular society we now see the rights of gays and women increasing, because people can challenge them using rational debate, and human empathy, but the church and religion sticks to their corrupt "rulebook" of how to live life, condeming peopel and calling them sinners, because they happened to read 1 of the religious books man has made.

Secular society (society/civilisation without church) demands democracy, debate, reason and rational. Which in tern, can give people rights, so that people do not get opressed for wearing what they want, for living how they want, loving who they want, true freedom.

Religion is:

-abolishing your own true freedom
-being gullabile and submitting to phoney theories
-needing to have a reason to do good, as if they wouldn't be good without it
-diluding your mind in thinking any God would have wishes and demands of your life, especially when God cannot be proved in the first place
-praying, to which is statistically, historically, and obviously inafective, wasting your time praying for things like strength when you could be getting stronger
-claiming to be more righteous than other people based on words in a book, and not words and arguments in rational debate.
-preventing things like polio cures and vaccines because "it's against God's design"
-being able to claim logic to killing or condeming people who oppose their own religion, to be able to kill in the name of a God, because thats what they're god "wants"

I will carry on opening peoples eyes, because i'm trying to emancipate the people who submit to this slavery of the mind.

[edit on 11/7/10 by awake_and_aware]

Have you any idea what your talking about. Do you understand that American is founded on the notion of separation of state from church. Do you know why? religious views and regulations are absolutist, there's no challenging them. No one can say what is good and bad, they are subjective.

I know precisely what I am talking about. American values including separation of church and state are based on subjective morality, much like any other set of values observed by anyone else. Simply stating that those values are the law of the land in the US does not make them objective or any more "moral". Why should some values receive a free pass with regard to objective proof and not others?

Do we need rules, or just education and understanding. Teachings of actions and consequence, empathy and sympathy. Certainly we will punish those who kill without reason, not in defense, certainly punish those rape women, but punish people who want to have sex certain way? or wear certain close? or not believe in a God? punishment for that is just insane

What objective proof do you use to justify punishing anyone for any reason? Don't say "because it's against the law" because anything can be criminalized. What objective proof can you provide suggesting we should promote empathy and sympathy? The universe couldn't give two squirts of warm urine about humanity or anything on this planet and you want to promote some touchy-feely saccharine-laden hippie woo-woo? Isn't that the basis for Jesus' message? Love others as you would yourself? Don't most religions, at their core, promote the same ideals? Generosity, compassion, and social justice are cornerstones of pretty much every faith, even if followers of said faith have a poor track regard of honoring those ideals consistently.

Secular society (society/civilisation without church) demands democracy, debate, reason and rational. Which in tern, can give people rights, so that people do not get opressed for wearing what they want, for living how they want, loving who they want, true freedom.

Again what objective evidence have you provided to insist that these values are "superior" to any other? If you value objective evidence to justify a belief please provide some. Right now all I see is "Western/Secular society demands this, I agree with the results so I'll promote this to exclusion of all else". This doesn't constitute objective evidence of any greater "truth" just that you support it.

Demands made by religions aren't much different than those demanded by a society/government in general.

-abolishing your own true freedom (Submitting to laws created by men to control, tax and penalize certain behavior based on illusory moral values)
-being gullible and submitting to phoney theories (Seen this more times than I can count; of course Iraq has WMD, Saddam helped the 911 terrorists, Bin Laden is in Iran, etc.)
-needing to have a reason to do good, as if they wouldn't be good without it (Laws i.e. needing a reason to maximize workplace safety, equality, environmental policy which often conflicts with maximizing profit and personal freedom)
-deluding your mind in thinking anyone should make moral demands of you, especially when morals are subjective and cannot be objectively proven in the first place.
-claiming to be more righteous than other people based on personal opinion and not on objective evidence and rational debate
-preventing things like cures and the like from becoming freely available because "it's not profitable for my company, there are too many people anyway, etc."
-being able to claim logic to killing or condemning people who oppose their own moral beliefs, to be able to kill in the name of "freedom", because that's what their country "wants".




[edit on 26-7-2010 by talonreaping]

[edit on 26-7-2010 by talonreaping]

I'll approach this differently than I have previously because I think it may make it easier to discuss:


Let's say tomorrow planet Earth makes contact with an extraterrestrial race. This race possesses a collective mind, a hive mind if you will. Whether by natural processes or by technology, individualism is non existent, morality is antiquated because no one can take useless action against another in the collective, as doing so would be taking action against themselves, so to speak. There is no good, no bad, only survival or non survival of the collective. Emotion is a disruptive force the aliens have worked hard to eliminate. This race is highly intelligent and very curious, they value science and objective reasoning above all else.

You are asked to provide 5 examples of human moral values (from any source, secular or not) for the aliens to study and are expected to provide scientifically testable evidence to bolster their individual validity or lack there of. You mention the 10 Commandments from the Bible, then values from the Koran and other religiously based moral beliefs because they are a subject of controversy and you feel they are easy to refute. You mention the contradictions in the religious texts, the implausible nature of God, the historically unprovable Jesus and how religions place such faith in such intangible accounts. You scoff at how centuries later believers bother to debate the details of Christ's crucifixion (pole or cross) or why it's even a relevant topic. You provide a detailed history as to the role of religious authorities in conflict and warfare. The aliens remain unperturbed and unmoved.

At some point your own moral values become a topic of discussion, what objective evidence do you provide to scientifically validate your values specifically? The aliens aren't interested in how much better you think your values are compared to someone elses or why, they want to know why yours has any validity at all. They won't accept appeals to authority, emotion or intuition, just the facts, objectively verifiable facts. What do you tell them?


Please understand, I'm not promoting some, all, or any moral beliefs whatsoever, from where ever they may spring. I am interested in arguments from evidence, and in the spirit of consistency, all beliefs should be held to the same scrutiny and analysis. Calling for some beliefs to scrutinized heavily and condemned while others (ideas about liberty, justice, etc.) are taken for granted doesn't pass the sniff test.


I know we've digressed a bit from the thread topic so I understand if the mods decide to label it off-topic but I think this post is consistent with the direction of the thread.

reply to post by talonreaping


its simpler than that. without the use or reference of religious scriptures.

1) Prove the existence of God
2) Prove the existence of God's desires (i.e rules and regulations)
3) Prove Jesus was the son of this "God"
4) Prove why religion is a good thing, charity and peace are not examples of why it's a good thing, you still have miles to go, why you need to be ordered or commanded to be peaceful and civil to your fellow human beings is beyond me, its slightly suspect that without God, they could be potentially raping and killing people. its disturbing.

Ten words...

Media has warped our fragile little minds...

End

reply to post by TheConspiracy


TEN WORDS

No TV, No desire for mainstream media

END

reply to post by Sinter Klaas


well, first of all, i must say that perhaps this scholar didn't do as adequate of research as he thinks.

SOMEONE was definitely crucified, at least once, and here is the irrefutable evidence:

nail in heel bone found in Jerusalem

as far as the lack of documentation of such a cruel and unusual punishment, we must remember that truthful confessions of such things are rarely found in ancient source documents.

who would write that down?
besides Pol Pot, that is.


when an army was defeated by another, they still made steles that said they were wonderfully victorious over the opponent. and the opponent's stele said the same thing, with the names reversed!

additionally, the NT is not the only source we have for Roman crucifixions in antiquity. we may not have Roman evidence, but we have other evidence.

i will find some and post it here.

good thread, btw!