Who is the “Greatest Man Who Ever Lived”?

[Maxleod]

This particular piece of nonsense (Christianity)

Except it's not. Nonsense. Jesus is not a fictional character, he actually existed.

[DirtyDishSoap]

Other thann n openninng the door to the Nick Cannnonn gag was the extra nnnn really causeinng ann issue?

I said somewhere in a post about sloppiness of writing (grammar, spelling, punctuation) that this CAN be and is often an indication of sloppy thinking, cursory analysis, and carelessness. jimb is not as bad as ConfedSS, but he sometimes approaches that level.

I usually take time to proofread before I post, but sometimes, like now, I am in a hurry. Proofreading is often the reason I edit my posts.

You're one to talk, who emphasizes just about every word imaginable. Lol

No, you are wrong, again.

If one drills down deep enough into ANY topic, there will come a point where the answer is:

1) we do not REALLY know (beyond the explanation(s) given);

2) we do not therefore know the REAL answer.

For example, what began the Big Bang?

If static electricity cannot be explained "deeper" than a transfer of electrons, then I cannot provide it. Every Physics textbook I have read gives that explanation. I will challenge someone else to offer you what you perceive as a better answer. For me, that answer is sufficient and rather complete. If you do not accept that, or you do not like it, then do you own research.

And as far as gravity, Relativity explains it NOT merely as things falling, but as a curvature of space. So we do have some "deeper" explanations than you allude to.

And, one last point for now, you seem to confuse length with circumference (girth).

And girth does not equal length; that may be true IN SOME cases BUT NOT all. And there was no implication that you were using Causality. In fact, I was the one who first even mention the notion in this thread. Not all long cylinders have the greatest length. So much for your causality argument.

As I already said, if one drills down deep enough, one can say there is NO TRUE or REAL explanation for most things. If you do like the ones I provide, so be it. I provide the answers that I know; I am not world's expert on this matter, so perhaps you want to discuss such topics with those who are.

We are going around in circles here, so I see no need to continue this unless you have something new to offer here, DY.

I think I will await a response or comment from Max; otherwise, I see no need to respond further.

Since August 22, 2022, you, ConfedSS, are the ONLY person to post in this thread (until now).

For MOST of us, COVID has been essentially OVER for some time, at least since August 2022.

There is no real need to update (and change the year). And most of your posts are an attempt to accuse President Biden of evil and your thinking is rather superficial on this matter.

Do you need more examples or are you ready to admit your writing is hard on the eyes?

[Dukasaur]

This particular piece of nonsense (Christianity)

Except it's not. Nonsense. Jesus is not a fictional character, he actually existed.

It's not proven that he existed, but I will grant you that it is likely. Just as there's a real Briton leader somewhere at the beginning of the Arthur legends, there's a real Jewish preacher somewhere as the kernel that began the Jesus legends.

That doesn't mean that any of the words and deeds ascribed to him actually happened exactly as described. The first three gospelers weren't firsthand sources. They were not even second-hand, most likely third-hand. And not only were they repeating third-hand stories, but they were mixing them with myths and legends and hearsay. So much of the story is very obviously cribbed from the Egyptian cult of Seth or from other tales.

The fourth gospeler, John, is one that (probably) actually met Jesus, but he would have been in his early teens at the time, and by the time he wrote his gospel he was a doddering old man and similarly filling the gaps in his memory with myth, legends, and hearsay.

Einstein has only been dead for half a century and people who knew him personally are still around, and yet already half of the Einstein anecdotes that circulate around are false.

[jusplay4fun]

Other thann n openninng the door to the Nick Cannnonn gag was the extra nnnn really causeinng ann issue?

I said somewhere in a post about sloppiness of writing (grammar, spelling, punctuation) that this CAN be and is often an indication of sloppy thinking, cursory analysis, and carelessness. jimb is not as bad as ConfedSS, but he sometimes approaches that level.

I usually take time to proofread before I post, but sometimes, like now, I am in a hurry. Proofreading is often the reason I edit my posts.

You're one to talk, who emphasizes just about every word imaginable. Lol

No, you are wrong, again.

If one drills down deep enough into ANY topic, there will come a point where the answer is:

1) we do not REALLY know (beyond the explanation(s) given);

2) we do not therefore know the REAL answer.

For example, what began the Big Bang?

If static electricity cannot be explained "deeper" than a transfer of electrons, then I cannot provide it. Every Physics textbook I have read gives that explanation. I will challenge someone else to offer you what you perceive as a better answer. For me, that answer is sufficient and rather complete. If you do not accept that, or you do not like it, then do you own research.

And as far as gravity, Relativity explains it NOT merely as things falling, but as a curvature of space. So we do have some "deeper" explanations than you allude to.

And, one last point for now, you seem to confuse length with circumference (girth).

And girth does not equal length; that may be true IN SOME cases BUT NOT all. And there was no implication that you were using Causality. In fact, I was the one who first even mention the notion in this thread. Not all long cylinders have the greatest length. So much for your causality argument.

As I already said, if one drills down deep enough, one can say there is NO TRUE or REAL explanation for most things. If you do like the ones I provide, so be it. I provide the answers that I know; I am not world's expert on this matter, so perhaps you want to discuss such topics with those who are.

We are going around in circles here, so I see no need to continue this unless you have something new to offer here, DY.

I think I will await a response or comment from Max; otherwise, I see no need to respond further.

Since August 22, 2022, you, ConfedSS, are the ONLY person to post in this thread (until now).

For MOST of us, COVID has been essentially OVER for some time, at least since August 2022.

There is no real need to update (and change the year). And most of your posts are an attempt to accuse President Biden of evil and your thinking is rather superficial on this matter.

Do you need more examples or are you ready to admit your writing is hard on the eyes?

Does reading tax you too much? Does reading strain your eyes?

Let me more like your pal ConfedSS:

Can you reply with more than one sentence.......?

......Can you think......?

[DirtyDishSoap]

Can you NOT write like an insipid tool and ACTUALLY refrain from CAPITALIZING every WORD that you feel gets the POINT across when in OUR REALITY you look like a DUMBASS?

Thanks!

Signed, EVERYONE.

[jusplay4fun]

This particular piece of nonsense (Christianity)

Except it's not. Nonsense. Jesus is not a fictional character, he actually existed.

It's not proven that he existed, but I will grant you that it is likely. Just as there's a real Briton leader somewhere at the beginning of the Arthur legends, there's a real Jewish preacher somewhere as the kernel that began the Jesus legends.

That doesn't mean that any of the words and deeds ascribed to him actually happened exactly as described. The first three gospelers weren't firsthand sources. They were not even second-hand, most likely third-hand. And not only were they repeating third-hand stories, but they were mixing them with myths and legends and hearsay. So much of the story is very obviously cribbed from the Egyptian cult of Seth or from other tales.

The fourth gospeler, John, is one that (probably) actually met Jesus, but he would have been in his early teens at the time, and by the time he wrote his gospel he was a doddering old man and similarly filling the gaps in his memory with myth, legends, and hearsay.

Einstein has only been dead for half a century and people who knew him personally are still around, and yet already half of the Einstein anecdotes that circulate around are false.

First of all, Duk, you have admitted to an anti-Christ, anti-Christian bias. So you will be skeptical of the Bible and its contents and authors.

The exact truth of the human writer of the Bible and the 4 Gospels is not known with certainty. But Christians believe that these events are true and the words are inspired by God.

I have already said that it is widely believed by Bible scholars that Mark is actually the first Gospel written by a young man close to Peter, one of the 12 Apostles. So that is 2nd hand, or even first hand. It is likely that Mark placed himself in the Gospel, in the scene where Christ is taken prisoner before his Crucifixion.

Although the book is anonymous, apart from the ancient heading “According to Mark” in manuscripts, it has traditionally been assigned to John Mark, in whose mother’s house (at Jerusalem) Christians assembled (Acts 12:12). This Mark was a cousin of Barnabas (Col 4:10) and accompanied Barnabas and Paul on a missionary journey (Acts 12:25; 13:3; 15:36–39). He appears in Pauline letters (2 Tm 4:11; Phlm 24) and with Peter (1 Pt 5:13). Papias (ca. A.D. 135) described Mark as Peter’s “interpreter,” a view found in other patristic writers. Petrine influence should not, however, be exaggerated. The evangelist has put together various oral and possibly written sources—miracle stories, parables, sayings, stories of controversies, and the passion—so as to speak of the crucified Messiah for Mark’s own day.

We are fairly sure that The Gospel of John is written by the Apostle John, but even that is not certain. There is an attempt in this Gospel to explain who Jesus is:

The Gospel according to John is quite different in character from the three synoptic gospels. It is highly literary and symbolic. It does not follow the same order or reproduce the same stories as the synoptic gospels. To a much greater degree, it is the product of a developed theological reflection and grows out of a different circle and tradition. It was probably written in the 90s of the first century.

The Gospel of John begins with a magnificent prologue, which states many of the major themes and motifs of the gospel, much as an overture does for a musical work. The prologue proclaims Jesus as the preexistent and incarnate Word of God who has revealed the Father to us. The rest of the first chapter forms the introduction to the gospel proper and consists of the Baptist’s testimony about Jesus (there is no baptism of Jesus in this gospel—John simply points him out as the Lamb of God), followed by stories of the call of the first disciples, in which various titles predicated of Jesus in the early church are presented.

The gospel narrative contains a series of “signs”—the gospel’s word for the wondrous deeds of Jesus. The author is primarily interested in the significance of these deeds, and so interprets them for the reader by various reflections, narratives, and discourses.

We are rather sure that Matthew is written for a Hebrew/Jewish audience; Luke is written by a former Gentile who knows Greek and is meant for a similar audience; Luke does not seem to know certain things that Jews would know. Again, their authorship is not known with certainty.

Luke’s consistent substitution of Greek names for the Aramaic or Hebrew names occurring in his sources (e.g., Lk 23:33; Mk 15:22; Lk 18:41; Mk 10:51), his omission from the gospel of specifically Jewish Christian concerns found in his sources (e.g., Mk 7:1–23), his interest in Gentile Christians (Lk 2:30–32; 3:6, 38; 4:16–30; 13:28–30; 14:15–24; 17:11–19; 24:47–48), and his incomplete knowledge of Palestinian geography, customs, and practices are among the characteristics of this gospel that suggest that Luke was a non-Palestinian writing to a non-Palestinian audience that was largely made up of Gentile Christians.

and

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE
The Gospel according to Luke is the first part of a two-volume work that continues the biblical history of God’s dealings with humanity found in the Old Testament, showing how God’s promises to Israel have been fulfilled in Jesus and how the salvation promised to Israel and accomplished by Jesus has been extended to the Gentiles. The stated purpose of the two volumes is to provide Theophilus and others like him with certainty—assurance—about earlier instruction they have received (Lk 1:4). To accomplish his purpose, Luke shows that the preaching and teaching of the representatives of the early church are grounded in the preaching and teaching of Jesus, who during his historical ministry (Acts 1:21–22) prepared his specially chosen followers and commissioned them to be witnesses to his resurrection and to all else that he did (Acts 10:37–42). This continuity between the historical ministry of Jesus and the ministry of the apostles is Luke’s way of guaranteeing the fidelity of the Church’s teaching to the teaching of Jesus.

Matthew:

The attribution of the gospel to the disciple Matthew may have been due to his having been responsible for some of the traditions found in it, but that is far from certain.

The unknown author, whom we shall continue to call Matthew for the sake of convenience, drew not only upon the Gospel according to Mark but upon a large body of material (principally, sayings of Jesus) not found in Mark that corresponds, sometimes exactly, to material found also in the Gospel according to Luke. This material, called “Q” (probably from the first letter of the German word Quelle, meaning “source”), represents traditions, written and oral, used by both Matthew and Luke. Mark and Q are sources common to the two other synoptic gospels; hence the name the “Two-Source Theory” given to this explanation of the relation among the synoptics.

[DirtyDishSoap]

Hey look! You didn't randomly capitalize anything! Yay!

[saxitoxin]

Early Semetic people had perfected oral history preservation through memorization. We also know the synoptic gospels all may have originated from the Q Source which was probably written at the time of Jesus' death.

[jusplay4fun]

Early Semetic people had perfected oral history preservation through memorization. We also know the synoptic gospels all may have originated from the Q Source which was probably written at the time of Jesus' death.

Wow. Insights from saxi. Who'd thunk dat..?????

[Dukasaur]

This particular piece of nonsense (Christianity)

Except it's not. Nonsense. Jesus is not a fictional character, he actually existed.

It's not proven that he existed, but I will grant you that it is likely. Just as there's a real Briton leader somewhere at the beginning of the Arthur legends, there's a real Jewish preacher somewhere as the kernel that began the Jesus legends.

That doesn't mean that any of the words and deeds ascribed to him actually happened exactly as described. The first three gospelers weren't firsthand sources. They were not even second-hand, most likely third-hand. And not only were they repeating third-hand stories, but they were mixing them with myths and legends and hearsay. So much of the story is very obviously cribbed from the Egyptian cult of Seth or from other tales.

The fourth gospeler, John, is one that (probably) actually met Jesus, but he would have been in his early teens at the time, and by the time he wrote his gospel he was a doddering old man and similarly filling the gaps in his memory with myth, legends, and hearsay.

Einstein has only been dead for half a century and people who knew him personally are still around, and yet already half of the Einstein anecdotes that circulate around are false.

First of all, Duk, you have admitted to an anti-Christ, anti-Christian bias. So you will be skeptical of the Bible and its contents and authors.

That's kinda close to the truth, but not exactly.

My bias is anti-supernatural. Yes, I scoff at Christian claims for the deity of Christ. I scoff equally at Krishna, Zeus, Allah, Manitou, Buddha (a deified Buddha, not necessarily at the Buddha-as-a-normal-fallible-human-philosopher version), Thor, Amon-Ra, etc., etc. I further scoff at Raelianism, Scientology, Tarot, Animism, Reiki, Numerology, Pyramid Power, Ghost Photography, etc., etc. Basically anything not rooted in a non-scientific belief system earns my contempt.

I am not specifically anti-Christian. Yes, the supernatural claims of Christians a laugh at, for reasons given above. On the other hand, I respect churches and the social stability they bring, the charity work they do, and the beautiful works of art they commission.

Out of time, finish this on the weekend.

[jimboston]

You idiots can get hung up on my typo… but none of you replied to the point.

Interesting.

Fiction is fiction.

You can believe it but that doesn’t make it history. Lots of idiots believe in Bigfoot, Flat Earth, Fake Moon Landing, etc… that doesn’t mean they’re right. I’d rather misspell a word occasionally and maintain a grounded sense of reality.

Your comments on the Bible are nonsensical and not worthy of any further responses.

And jimb still need to proofread, and proof read, too.

I don’t think you know what that word means…

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/nonsensical

You certainly have a right to disagree with me… and intelligent people can debate the Bible as “Fact vs. Fiction”.

Just to state my claim as nonsensical is demonstrating you don’t understand what that word means, and the statement of one who is incapable of defending his beliefs.

[jimboston]

This particular piece of nonsense (Christianity)

Except it's not. Nonsense. Jesus is not a fictional character, he actually existed.

Perhaps… but all the other stuff the Bible claims happened is fiction.

[jimboston]

Early Semetic people had perfected oral history preservation through memorization. We also know the synoptic gospels all may have originated from the Q Source which was probably written at the time of Jesus' death.

No such thing as “perfected oral history”.

[Maxleod]

This particular piece of nonsense (Christianity)

Except it's not. Nonsense. Jesus is not a fictional character, he actually existed.

Perhaps… but all the other stuff the Bible claims happened is fiction.

And you know that for a fact because... Yeah you don't. You don't even have facts, some people have Faith.

[jimboston]

This particular piece of nonsense (Christianity)

Except it's not. Nonsense. Jesus is not a fictional character, he actually existed.

Perhaps… but all the other stuff the Bible claims happened is fiction.

And you know that for a fact because... Yeah you don't. You don't even have facts, some people have Faith.

Faith is the antithesis of Facts.

[jusplay4fun]

You idiots can get hung up on my typo… but none of you replied to the point.

Interesting.

Fiction is fiction.

You can believe it but that doesn’t make it history. Lots of idiots believe in Bigfoot, Flat Earth, Fake Moon Landing, etc… that doesn’t mean they’re right. I’d rather misspell a word occasionally and maintain a grounded sense of reality.

Your comments on the Bible are nonsensical and not worthy of any further responses.

And jimb still need to proofread, and proof read, too.

I don’t think you know what that word means…

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/nonsensical

You certainly have a right to disagree with me… and intelligent people can debate the Bible as “Fact vs. Fiction”.

Just to state my claim as nonsensical is demonstrating you don’t understand what that word means, and the statement of one who is incapable of defending his beliefs.

Using your source, this is my evaluation of your Bible interpretations:

nonsensical

See synonyms for nonsensical on Thesaurus.com

adjective
(of words or language) having little or no meaning; making little or no sense:

QED. PERIOD.

[jusplay4fun]

Science, is represented by and based on facts.

Religion is a matter of faith.

Here is the connection: both try to find the truth, but from different perspectives. I can appreciate and try to understand both.

Some dismiss religion. They have free will; they can make that choice. Science, which some use to replace religion, in modern times, has now come into doubt by many. So what does one believe and and hold as a constant, a cornerstone, a rock of stability in a changing world?

[saxitoxin]

A quick reading of the synoptic gospels reveals that either Jesus was an utter lunatic or singularly brilliant.

Who would go around speaking only in riddles and metaphors? In fact, it was so completely odd, that the disciples come right out and ask him at one point WTF is he only speaking in parables [Matthew 13].

We now know that Jesus' manner of speaking was purposefully designed to allow its almost perfect transmission through spoken word using the memorization techniques that had been created by early Jews for use in poetry.

The brilliant German New Testament scholar Rainer Riesner —a veritable academic superstar and author of the essay “Jesus as Preacher and Teacher” — determined that approximately “eighty percent of the separate saying units” spoken by Christ “are formulated in some kind of parallelismus membrorum [parallelism of members, i.e., lines of poetry.] To this one has to add other poetical techniques such as alliteration, assonance, rhythm, and rhyme.”7 Far from being merely pleasing to the ear, such mnemonic devices were purposefully powerful. “The poetical structure of the words of Jesus made them, like the meshalim [figurative language] of the Old Testament prophets, easily memorizable and could preserve them intact. Even the form of the sayings of Jesus included in itself an imperative to remember them. It seems that the use of mnemonic devices is very seldom studied from the point of view of the psychology of the memory, but our own experience demonstrates how easy it is to learn and even to reconstruct large bodies of material, if they are in a poetical form.”

https://www.equip.org/articles/the-rema ... l-history/

Insofar as the historic Jesus, we have evidence abundant:

(a) The three synoptic gospels, based on analysis of writing style, combined with dating and geography of the original documents, strongly suggests they were written by three different people.
(b) Not more than 80 years after Jesus' death, the pagan Roman senator and historian Tacitus wrote about a Hebrew preacher named Jesus whose activities sparked civil unrest in Judea and who was executed by soldiers of the 10th Legion on orders of Pontius Pilate; his writings don't reference anything from the synoptic gospels or give any indication he knew of Josephus.
(c) The Jewish historian Josephus, roughly 60 years after Jesus' death, also briefly mentioned an itinerant preacher in Judea named Jesus who attracted a large and militant following due to the radical nature of his sermons and who was executed by Pontius Pilate.

So we have five different approximate contemporaries, two of whom are non-Christians, independently attesting to the historicity of Jesus based on either firsthand knowledge or referencing archival files now lost to us. For someone who lived 2,000 years ago and wasn't a member of a royal household you can't get much better than that. Even Pilate himself, who was a Prefect, only has three surviving references to him - the Tacitus and Josephus writings and an architectural dedication stone discovered in 1961 and dated to 26 AD that lists him by name and title.

[saxitoxin]

[jimboston]

You idiots can get hung up on my typo… but none of you replied to the point.

Interesting.

Fiction is fiction.

You can believe it but that doesn’t make it history. Lots of idiots believe in Bigfoot, Flat Earth, Fake Moon Landing, etc… that doesn’t mean they’re right. I’d rather misspell a word occasionally and maintain a grounded sense of reality.

Your comments on the Bible are nonsensical and not worthy of any further responses.

And jimb still need to proofread, and proof read, too.

I don’t think you know what that word means…

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/nonsensical

You certainly have a right to disagree with me… and intelligent people can debate the Bible as “Fact vs. Fiction”.

Just to state my claim as nonsensical is demonstrating you don’t understand what that word means, and the statement of one who is incapable of defending his beliefs.

Using your source, this is my evaluation of your Bible interpretations:

nonsensical

See synonyms for nonsensical on Thesaurus.com

adjective
(of words or language) having little or no meaning; making little or no sense:

QED. PERIOD.

What makes no sense?

I’m saying I believe the Bible is fiction. How does that NOT make sense to you?
You can disagree with my belief… but if that belief makes no sense to you then that’s a YOU problem.

[saxitoxin]

You idiots can get hung up on my typo… but none of you replied to the point.

Interesting.

Fiction is fiction.

You can believe it but that doesn’t make it history. Lots of idiots believe in Bigfoot, Flat Earth, Fake Moon Landing, etc… that doesn’t mean they’re right. I’d rather misspell a word occasionally and maintain a grounded sense of reality.

Your comments on the Bible are nonsensical and not worthy of any further responses.

And jimb still need to proofread, and proof read, too.

I don’t think you know what that word means…

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/nonsensical

You certainly have a right to disagree with me… and intelligent people can debate the Bible as “Fact vs. Fiction”.

Just to state my claim as nonsensical is demonstrating you don’t understand what that word means, and the statement of one who is incapable of defending his beliefs.

Using your source, this is my evaluation of your Bible interpretations:

nonsensical

See synonyms for nonsensical on Thesaurus.com

adjective
(of words or language) having little or no meaning; making little or no sense:

QED. PERIOD.

What makes no sense?

I’m saying I believe the Bible is fiction. How does that NOT make sense to you?
You can disagree with my belief… but if that belief makes no sense to you then that’s a YOU problem.

Do you believe the miracles are fiction or the non miraculous events are fiction? Also are you referring to the OT or the NT?

I agree with Duk there's no doubt the OT is ahistorical. The story of Moses is essentially plagiarized from Babylonian myth, for instance.

Like Tolstoy and Jefferson, I'm skeptical of most of the miracles in the NT. But I feel confident that the routine events of the NT, like the Sermon on the Mount and the crucifixion at Calvary, occurred in some manner, broadly speaking.

[jimboston]

The miracles are fiction.

The non-miraculous parts may be based on some truth, but they could be factionalized in part… just like any history or biography. The bias of the writer, translator, editor etc. all come into play. This bias, and the likely distance from reality, is going to increase the further away we get in time from the event being recorded. This happens in modern history when the authors are generally trying to be factual… it happens more in histories when the writers, compilers, editors, translators, etc. all have an agenda.

[saxitoxin]

The miracles are fiction.

The non-miraculous parts may be based on some truth, but they could be factionalized in part… just like any history or biography. The bias of the writer, translator, editor etc. all come into play. This bias, and the likely distance from reality, is going to increase the further away we get in time from the event being recorded. This happens in modern history when the authors are generally trying to be factual… it happens more in histories when the writers, compilers, editors, translators, etc. all have an agenda.

The miracles are of tertiary importance. They're the flash, not the substance.

The work was completed on the hill of Calvary. No miracles were performed there, hence no belief in miracles is required to affirm the lesson of the Nazarene.

[saxitoxin]

"The Christian religion when divested of the rags in which they [the clergy] have enveloped it, and brought to the original purity and simplicity of its benevolent institutor, is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, and the freest expression of the human mind.”

[2dimes]

I agree with Duk there's no doubt the OT is ahistorical. The story of Moses is essentially plagiarized from Babylonian myth, for instance.

Is it plagiarized or a case of two seperate and conflicting cultures telling the same story?

It seems unlikely any Hebrew, particularly the scribes, would want anything to do with a Babylonian myth.

Could be like deciding Georgian stories about Ioseb Dzhugashvili, sound the same as and therefore, are plagiarized from American myths.