Jesus Christ of the Gospels Never Existed. He's a Myth and I Can Prove It (Part 1). (prayer, seven)
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Is the existence of Hinduism and a billion followers evidence Krishna is real just like the existence of Christianity is evidence Jesus is real?
He believes false gods are real, too. Or at least that they are demons masquerading as gods, or something to that effect.
Many evangelicals also believe this. If you believe your god is the only god, then by definition all other gods are imaginary, supernatural fakes, human lies, etc. Or if you're of a more liberal bent, you might say these other gods are just different perspectives on the one true god. That Krishna is like another facet or way to understand God or Jesus.
But however you go about it you must maintain the fiction that there is One True God. Otherwise you would be a polytheist.
I thought you were a bible-believing Christian, Mike. No Bible-believing fundamentalist Christian would ever admit Krishna is real.
A Bible-believing fundamentalist Christian might well think Krishna is a demonic entity masquerading as a god.
Mike is a traditional or "trad" Catholic, not a fundamentalist, but if his view is substantively different from a fundamentalist on this matter, he'll have to explain how.
Why does the historian have to be "secular" and "uncontroversial"? Why should we be burdened by your arbitrary and unreasonable criteria?
You have a fundamentalist mindset that is difficult to constructively engage with.
Here's why I and others who are secular Bible scholars ask for secular historians:
I've stated before but I'll state again: secular Bible historians recognize the New Testament to be theological statements of faith contained within historical settings. They do not consider the gospels to be strictly historic documents:
"First, scholars explain that the gospels were created as documents of faith, not documents of history. They were not written as accurate historical biographies of the human Jesus who lived and died in the first century of the Common Era (CE). The gospels are more a record of the early church’s beliefs about Jesus than a true historical record of what Jesus actually said and did. They were written to present the message of the early church—its teaching and preaching about Jesus—and to give an overview of Jesus’ life and death to people who already believed that Jesus was the son of God and savior of the world.
The author of John’s gospel states plainly that his purpose is faith, not history."
But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. (John 20:31)
The uncontroversial I would think is obvious: when a historical testimony is mired in controversy as for example a passage that the majority of historians believe is riddled with interpolations and for which the historians cannot decide what parts are authentic and which parts were tampered with by one or more later theologians then the passage cannot be relied upon to give accurate information.
"Opinion on the authenticity of this [Josephus Testimonium Flavinium] passage is varied. Louis H. Feldman surveyed the relevant literature from 1937 to 1980 in Josephus and Modern Scholarship. Feldman noted that 4 scholars regarded the Testimonium Flavianum as entirely genuine, 6 as mostly genuine, 20 accept it with some interpolations, 9 with several interpolations, and 13 regard it as being totally an interpolation."
He believes false gods are real, too. Or at least that they are demons masquerading as gods, or something to that effect.
Many evangelicals also believe this. If you believe your god is the only god, then by definition all other gods are imaginary, supernatural fakes, human lies, etc. Or if you're of a more liberal bent, you might say these other gods are just different perspectives on the one true god. That Krishna is like another facet or way to understand God or Jesus.
But however you go about it you must maintain the fiction that there is One True God. Otherwise you would be a polytheist.
Yes, of course. I'd forgotten about that angle. I caught him on that once before but it completely slipped my mind this time around.
Ran across this tonight ... another interesting summary of some of the lost / suppressed Christian writings now dismissed as "apocryphal" but really just mostly embarrassing to Christianity. Includes alternative versions of Deuteronomy and the Gospel of Mark and others, suggesting that many versions were in circulation. And that the Deuteronomy most of us know as quite possibly derived from this other, different account.
Ah, and the lost 11th commandment: Don't hate your brother in your heart. I can see why Christianity doesn't like that ... if you can't, just read some of the threads in the Christianity forum!
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I thought you were a bible-believing Christian, Mike. No Bible-believing fundamentalist Christian would ever admit Krishna is real.
