this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2024
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Showerthoughts
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I don't think Jesus ever existed. Show me 12 guys that experience something absolutely world changing, and none of them write anything about it for decades and then tell me they were factually motivated. This is the premise we're dealing with.
We were all stupid gullible little kids learning this stuff. Most people are only doing it for the social network, but don't understand it as such. The bias of disregarding all the opposing evidence causes cognitive dissonance and most of the bad behaviors of present society.
Pragmatically, a group of nobodies managed to survive Rome destroying their civilization because of stupidity and rebellious nationalism. This diaspora was a refugee crisis everywhere else. No one wanted them and their religion was a joke. They had no where to go, owned nothing, and were not even citizens of the lands they inhabited. Most were likely slaves. After a few decades, some started rebuilding a life. It was the perfect opportunity to fabricate some new religious thing if you were a displaced nobody. That diaspora wanted meaningful purpose to make them feel nostalgic over their religious past. The gospels are the tales of some nobodies that didn't have to work because they sold themselves as the product that filled the niche needs of the more successful among that diaspora. They got put up in people's houses and fed well. They likely did so until they got caught by some Romans while trying to grow their religious support base, or because they were overstaying their welcome everywhere they went. Like Paul was probably put on a boat knowing that he wouldn't be able to return, probably a boat likely to sink, and one sent into a storm on purpose.
It is easy to say all the things that "thousands witnessed" when all those thousands are dead or displaced and unable to dispute anything you've said. None of them wrote down any part of their accounts for several decades. What kinds of reliable stories can you tell after several decades. To top that off, there are elementary school level copying errors that are blatant in nature. They are exactly what I expect from a con. You don't have a case where there are 12 unique accounts or 11 if you want to be pedantic. I can easily picture myself in this circumstance, and I can easily see myself performing this exact con if my alternative was starving to death. There is nothing remarkable about the story. At the time, there were very few people that supported or believed it. A couple hundred years later it picked up steam. That too is obvious. Polytheism is like an anarchic political party. Any fool can conjure a political movement that has potential to overthrow governments using an obscure god of convince and a plausible story that feeds what others want to hear.. Look at Julius Caesar. He largely used his religious role as pontifex maximus to gain power as a populist. Monotheism is far easier to control. The true purpose of religion is quite simple. It is a self sustaining way to suppress the peasantry. This is the common thread throughout all of history. Religion functions as a morality police system with a corpus that is just long enough to occupy the minds of the average person. It is a source of tribal isolation. It is not a meritocracy, so it will not evolve much with time. Conservative sadism and ignorance are an effective way to oppresses or suppress progressive societal elements that might question the corruption and ineptitude of the upper class. Religion creates little gullible pockets of people that are easily manipulated by the upper class and authority.
So no, there is no evidence for anything more than opportunistic cons and pragmatic government if you really strip away all the layers and look at it objectively. It is a system of feelings over logic because feelings disregard facts and make up their own like imaginary friends no one has ever talked to, or a magical future if you just go about your insignificant life while telling you it will be better next time. Or shit, how about we really rub it in: in the next life "the meek will inherit the earth." That's right, act as low as you can little peasants, and be happy about it. It will be better next time. Your imaginary friend said so about this place no one has ever seen or been to. The majority of humans believe shit like this. If you know this stuff well, you know I did too.
You can't fix stupid in anyone else; only within yourself. Fighting or arguing with anyone that places emotionally derived belief over fundamental logic is a pointless and destructive waste of time. Sharing reasonable logic with those on the edge can be helpful, but like, I came up with all of this on my own completely independent of external sources.
https://theobjectivestandard.com/2021/04/creating-christ-how-roman-emperors-invented-christianity-by-james-valliant-and-warren-fahy/
wonderfully written! yes I absolutely agree with that perspective. Additionally having a mascot in the form of a guy who wholeheartedly believes he's the son of the God (and is also god in a way because we can't get polytheists about it of course) is a great marketing move. People always have a hard time trusting and identifying with some ethereal entity up in the sky, there's a reason why all gods have human (or animal) faces, if Jesus was fully made up or inspired by a mentally ill guy who was completely delusional but still kind that's another thing lol
I'd agree with the statement "the twelve apostles didn't exist," especially seeing how in Luke they go from the ten to the twelve and the various gospels can't even agree on the list of them.
But show me the invented religious figure where the earliest surviving records are disputes over who they were and what they were talking about. Pretty much every cult around a real person ends up that way after the person dies or is imprisoned. But not the made up figures so much.
Literacy and writing were uncommon then, though.
If jesus could do that stuff he could just give people knowledge of writing instantaneously i mean their really is no excuse when someone is literally omnipotent
Or more likely, Jesus was an eminent rabbi of the era, that oral stories expanded for hundreds of years, until he became a literal avatar of a god.
Or maybe he was a fraudster like another magician of the time - Simon Magus, who is mentioned in the Bible. Simon was an escape artist, and had a levitation illusion. That's not far from water to wine or walking on water.