Religion… What do you think?

What was the first Religion?

As far back as 223,000 B.C there is examples of Homo heidelbergensis performing funeral rituals. Oldest still been practised is Hinduism. Oldest recorded is Sumerian.

Not really.

Which historians??? How about:

• Tacitus
• Philo of Alexandria
• Appian
• Ptolemy
• Quintilian
• Plutarch
• Pliny the Elder
• Lucius Florus
• Suetonius
• Marcus Velleius Paterculus
• Aulus Gellius

Do I need to keep going? I mean, because there's a lot more. These are writers and historians of around the time of Jesus that didnt even mention him... at all. These are people who recorded everything that happened, from what happened in the skies to what happened in current events and politics.

Not satisfied? Think it's all some vast conspiracy to hide the truth by the Romans? How about Justus Tiberias, who was a 1st century Jewish writer and historian from Galilee... you know, where Jesus was supposed to have come from? Justus Tiberias wrote a history of the Jews from that time and never mentioned Jesus or his deeds... not once!

Even if we look at the best evidence that Jesus existed, it's at best flimsy and at worse it's fake. If we look at what some consider one of the best evidence, the writings of Josephus, we can see the issues. Josephus is a well respected historian from after the time of Jesus. In his writings we find one passage:

Antiquities 18.3.3. "Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct to this day."

The only problem is that this is widely believed to have been inserted later by a Christian, and not actually written by Josephus. For one thing, Josephus was an extremely thorough writers and often wrote very long passages about unknown people. If he was talking about Jesus and what Jesus supposedly did, you could expect entire chapters in his writings. More importantly however, Josephus was a Jew and would not have written things like "He was the Christ". He simply would not. There are also other reasons to think that the passage is a fake.

So, yeah, if Jesus did exist and the things in the Bible happened, we'd expect that historians of the day would have recorded it. But no, not a single bit of evidence exists that any of that happened other than the writings of Christians... writings that were specifically chosen to put into the Bible in order to support the religion and the Church.

This is the context. I'm not refusing to consider it at all, in fact I have looked at the context quite a bit. Have you? I'm looking at the evidence and then forming an opinion, not forming an opinion and then picking and choosing the evidence that supports it.

People are still using Josephus as evidence, wow that is embarrassing.

Quite often unfortunately.

I shouldn't be surprised people are still quoting and poking holes in Origin Of The Species as if that was the be all and end all of evolution.

223,000 BC? Wow, that's going back longer than I suspected.

Wow. I had researched the Creationist fundamentalist and their hostility to Atheists and it seems sad in America. I live in the UK and Atheism is a norm here. Most people don't care about Religion and there are members in parliament who are Atheist. But America (especially the South) seems worlds apart in regards to this issue. Atheists can't even hold Congress in America (I suspect many members of Congress lied about their belief).

Your family/town don't know you're Atheist?

@willpayton: Honestly not a lot of evidence for Jesus even existing as a human man. What about this Yeshua claim?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeshua_%28name%29

@frozen: they know I'm not very religious. Remember they are paying for my college, I'd rather not be disowned by them and the community.

Yes, many places in the world are better in this regard than the U.S., especially as you say the South in this country. And yes, I suspect that many people have historically lied about religion to not torpedo their changes at elected office, up to the Presidency.

Of course while many parts of the U.S. are actively hostile towards people who dont believe what they do, there's also many progressive places where lack of religion is more of a norm. I happen to live in one such place on the west coast.

If you mean that Jesus's name was actually Yeshua, then yes it probably was if he was a real person. "Jesus" just comes from the Latin spelling of the word, which of course would not have been what he was actually called.

@cable_extreme: Ah, I see.

But if you are from the South and a place you describe to be very Religious (and socialized that way). What led you to Atheism?

On religion, it's a good influence on people, if you take the bible and get the lessons out of it, you're a better person. Obviously, if you misinterpret stuff then things like the bible make very little sense. It's about understanding the meaning of it. Like morals to a story

1) what good lessons from the Bible can help a person be a "better person"?

2) what stuff has been misinterpreted in your opinion?

3) You mention the Bible. Is it just a book of morals? Or do you believe it is inspired by God?

4) Do you believe any religions or religious books are inspired by God? Thanks

@pooty:

1.) It all falls under this

If you love God, you will keep his commandments, which means you will do things like love thy neighbor as thyself. This means your interactions with other people are good on your part, improving your emotional state as well as the emotional state around you.

2.) There are certain scriptures in the Old Testament that can be misinterpreted due to translation and the fact that the bible was edited. Off the top of my head, there is a certain scripture that says women should not speak in a church.

3.) I believe it is inspired by God, but I also believe that man edited it (did happen Nicene Council)

4.) I'm Mormon, so I also believe in the Book of Mormon, I believe that all religious books have a piece of truth in them, but there is also a lot of unnecesary or wrong things within them.

@jacthripper: Just curious on your point 4.

In regards to the Book of Mormon, do you believe that Jesus visited America as the book claimed?

1) Cool

2) You said Old Testament but the scripture you mentioned is New Testament. Do you think there are errors in the New Testament also?

3) What parts do you think they edited? Why would they edit it?

4) Great. I don't talk to many mormons. I did a google search. Can you verify these statements please? Take your time. No rush

A) How is the Mormon version of Adam/Eve different from the Bible version?

B) Where there prophets in America?

C) Did Jesus appear in America?

D) Did Smith look into a hat or use special glasses to translate the words?

E) Are the prophets listed in the Book named in any historical or archeological finding?

F) The original sin was a part of God's plan and needed for procreation?

G) Everyone is given a immortal physical body regardless of their beliefs or actions?

@willpayton:

Not really.

Now you are just going around in circles. There are only 2 options: either Jesus existed or he didn't. I will take it as you do not believe Jesus existed despite the evidence.

Which historians??? How about:

• Tacitus
• Philo of Alexandria
• Appian
• Ptolemy
• Quintilian
• Plutarch
• Pliny the Elder
• Lucius Florus
• Suetonius
• Marcus Velleius Paterculus
• Aulus Gellius

None of those were based in Judea, so what is your point? Tacitus was born several years after Christ's death, and he did give reference to the crucifixion and persecution of Christians. Thanks for proving my point. I'm sure I'll have fun with the others listed, but that would have to be at a later time.

No I'm not going around in circles, unless you mean saying the same thing over and over again hoping you'll understand it one of these times, in which case yes I am.

Being "based in Judea" is not a requirement for writers and historians to write about an event. And my "point" was to answer your question.

If you think I proved your point, then you're mistaken. I already pointed out that there were many writers and historians of that era who would have recorded such events as the existence of Jesus and certainly events such as an earthquake and zombies walking the streets. Those are not things that would only be told orally in a local area. Word of events like those would quickly spread far and wide and would definitely be recorded. I even gave you a specific example of a historian from that exact location that wrote about the history if the Jews of that time... who never mentioned Jesus.

If you want to ignore all that... feel free. A hallmark of religion is to ignore evidence and logic in favor of unfounded belief. If this is what you want, again feel free.

I think Carl Sagan sums religion up best for me ..

"Unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true"!

How many consider faith a virtue?

@pooty: I'll get a post up soon, give me a few tho busy

@frozen: Yes

@frozen: I don't think I was led to Atheism by anything other than being critical of my views in early highschool. Questioning myself, and I just chunked it. Probably what helped most is my deep interest in astronomy and outer-solar system studies (other galaxies, or stars within our own etc..). Nothing makes sense when you look at astronomy from a young earth creationist view point.

In between my transition to atheism I was a deist. My reasoning behind that was that the Universe has laws that makes it VERY effective at self sustaining itself. For example, nebulae that consist of mostly hydrogen form and due to mainly gravity (also static charge) gas forms into stars that then combust and start a process called nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion within stars basically manufactures elements, and then scatters them across their galaxies to then rotate around newly forming stars. As a deist I thought that someone must have thought that up, designed it. And I thought that we were just a byproduct of those laws. But I ended up just saying idk and effectively became an agnostic atheist.

Why is it that when People want to say a Prayer over their Food before they consume it... they want to go into a long drawn out Prayer of thanking everyone on the whole facking planet... Man, will you keep it to like 1 minute dude. You are saying a prayer over Food... not summoning down Angels from Heaven to protect us from the end of the world.

Maybe it's just The Vanity of Humans... wanting to appear so Holy and Righteous in front of others who call themselves Christians too.

@king_saturn: My aunt only has long prayers on Christmas I think.

Rub a dub dub thanks for the grub.

In my opinion religion is the worst thing man has ever invented. When people ask me what religion is to me or to define it, I would have to say it is the practice of being ignorant. No matter how you want to look at religion historically or by it's own text, You would have to be a sociopath to practice it. Religion has been used to enslave, murder, rape and pillage. It's PC to blame the people instead of the religion but thats bullshit. The King James Bible is the ultimate irony seeing as it helped kill real Christianity.

What Christians worship today is not the same bible that was worshipped when it was created. Constantine who was a pagan was looking to unify his empire decided to take a lesser known religion (christianity) and took a bunch of bishops who then went over these relgious texts eliminated what they didn't like and took bits and pieces of what they like and filled in the rest. The ten commandments for example are a small fraction of text that was taken from a gospel that was banned from the bible. It was banned because Jesus himself described having a more personal relationship with people and talked about how you didnt need to go to church. Yeah bishops weren't having none of that for obvious reasons. Anyone who fought back or still practiced Christianity as it was before Constantine, they were jailed or executed. And that is the story of where the bible came from.

Being the average christian means ignoring historical facts like this and just spewing shit thats in the bible. It doesnt mater what science says what history says scripture scripture scriputre. Ok their are verses in the bible desrcibing God getting his ass kicked in a wrestling match. God got stopped by a bunch of jag offs in chariots. I gurantee you ya wont here your preacher talking about these verses in Church. I wonder why. It's absurd how anyone can actually dedicate their life to this from any stand point,

Dont get me started on Islam. Jesus H Christ these people literally have never had a peacful or golden era since the inception of their religion yet its not PC to claim it's not a religion of Peace. Hey even tho it says quite clearly more than 100 times that to get into heaven you have to convert or kill as many people as possible only the terrorist follow those rules thats not real islam. Even tho it's in the quran. The middle east had medical, mathametical equations, airdynamics and a slew of other inventions that were so advanced that when it got to the western world in the 17 centuary it started the the renaissance Why hasnt there been a period of time like that in the middle east? Oh thats right because they murdered them all in the name of islam.

No, I consider it gullibility.

If it can be interpreted in a multitude of ways, how can it be divine and holy?

@mr_clockwork91: Because people do not read the original translation. Different translations = more confusion because words we use today in our modern translations are different than the original text.

Do you even know what original means? The first, alpha, the starting point. There are no original texts from the bible. The oldest that we have is the Dead Sea Scrolls, very similar but not a 100 percent. Even then, a lot of it is in ancient Hebrew, modern Hebrew is not the same as ancient Hebrew. The language is a reborn language. Even if the ancient text managed to stay the exact same, that doesn't mean the language we derived from it is in any way accurate.

@mr_clockwork91: That's.. what I mean. I've been talking about Hebrew text this whole thread..

@chillxpill: So then how have you come to the conclusion that the bible IS the word of god and is inerrant? How do you know if it is accurate?

@mr_clockwork91: Historical and supernatural evidence in the Bible I've already mentioned.

@chillxpill: But the historical evidence for it is flimsy at best. And there is no evidence for the supernatural events what so ever.

@mr_clockwork91: An opinion.

I mean really it's pretty much pointless :P. What's the point of presenting historical information that's about something you don't believe in. Of course you're going to question it every time, and shoot it down every time. No matter how much the historical evidence of outside and inside sources line up with scripture.. like everything else that isn't right in front of you, you're not going to believe anyway.

:P So if you or others want to just deny it over and over or just appeal to what the Bible says because of your standard on what it should be then be my guest.

Is Jesus your friend? If so, then I dedicate this video... to you.

Why was Mary still a virgin?

I just told you that it was a mistranslation. The word 'young' was actually translated for 'virgin' --- essentially a mistake boasting a myth.

I don't.

Because of the culture of the time. Sex before marriage was obviously a sin, and the man responsible would have to wed the woman he impregnated.

There were also other words for young that could have been obviously employed.

@blacklegraph: That did not address what I said. The myth is that Mary gave birth to Jesus without having sex, that God impregnated her. The original language/text was mistranslated and therefore misinterpreted. The Hebrew word for virgin is bethulah, this word would have been the Hebrew equivalent for the Greek parthenos. The Greek equivalent for almah should actually be neanis, which means young woman. Almah is the Hebrew word for young woman.

This article completely debunks the mistralsnation and the fact that the original Hebrew text says nothing about a Virgin birth whatsoever: http://www.rejectionofpascalswager.net/virgin.html#mistranslation

Watch this video. Francesca Stavrakopoulou, Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion believes Jesus existed as a person (despite lack of evidence) and details how the mistranslation occurred: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p012w5fr

Hey, me too.

That's pretty interesting, thanks for posting it. I never heard about the mistranslation of the virgin birth story... although of course it's silly. It's as likely that Jesus was born from a virgin as it is that he was born from a horse. Anyway, this is the problem with people believing stories that are thousands of years old. Not only is there really no evidence for this stuff, but it's also extremely unlikely that these stories 1) are true to begin with, and 2) survived the passage of time, translations, and multiple copyings without being substantially changed.

I've seen another video where Francesca was in a debate with other religious and non-religious people, and she basically said that most things in the Bible are not true.

Too bad she didnt mention that the passage about Jesus in Josephus is probably a fake. Considering that part of the reason scholars think Jesus actually existed is because of that passage... it seems significant.

@logy5000: Wow, wasn't expecting that

@jacthripper: @logy5000: I'm also Mormon. I think @renchamp is, too.