Interesting Observation
Offline Ever heard of C.S. Lewis's Trilemma? In it he claims that you either accept Jesus's claim that he was divine and the Son of God, or you label him a lunatic or liar. From this proposition now comes a favorite argument for Christian Apologetics: "If Jesus was not who New Testament claims he was, why would Christianity have become so popular shortly after his death?" The basic tenet of this thinking is that if Jesus had never, in his lifetime, claimed to be divine, why would the people who witnessed the teachings of Jesus believe his disciples when they claimed that Jesus was divine?
Interestingly enough, the Bible seems to show otherwise. Mark 6 has a section describing what the people thought of Jesus. Some thought he was Elias while others thought he was John the Baptist back from the dead. Jesus has never been recorded as making either claim. So Christians are literally saying that it is implausible that people would believe in the divinity of Jesus after he died, while expecting us to believe that people believed he was a dead person while he was alive.
Summary:
Theists say that people wouldn't believe in the divinity of Jesus after he died if he never claimed to be divine, while saying that people believed he was John the Baptist, back from the dead, even when he never made such a claim.
I hope I made my point clear.
"The Chaplain had mastered, in a moment of divine intuition, the handy technique of protective rationalization and he was exhilarated by his discovery. It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. Just no Character."
"He...had gone down in flames...on the seventh day, while God was resting"
"You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You should be taken outside and shot!"
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I think the phrase is just a booga-booga to scare Christians away from doubting their own faith. When you are raised into religion, Jesus is a figure put up on a pedastal, to doubt him is a cultural taboo. The C.S. Lewis Trilemma is simply an outgrowth of that, or at least that is what I make out of it. When I was taught the trilemma as a child I thought, "Wow, yea that's true, and He couldn't possibly be a fool or a liar, He's *Jesus*!".
As an adult atheist I know he certainly might have been a fool, or a liar, or both, even if He did exist. So now the statement just seems silly...but it certainly didn't when I was a child.
Then the second part has a simple answer...people believe silly things all the time. The exact same phrase could be used for Muhammad. Again, a plea to people who are already believers.
I'm not impressed with apologetics anymore, because most of it seems to start with lots of assumptions and cultural baggage.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
All cultural garbage is nothing but appeal to emotion. Make up a super hero and wish it to be fact and you have the makings of horror. Labels are the last distraction that will fall with the scrutiny of reality in that we all fart shit and will die. Name me one Pope, Cleric, Priest, Rabbi or atheist that hasn't taken a shit or won't die?
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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Didn't you give me this same speech in another thread? Labels!
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.