Should we discuss the Nativity again?

[edhopper]

That time of year, when that preposterous, anti-historical story that most Christians believe actually happened is on display everywhere.

Having heard some silly thing about why they ended up in the manger the other day, my thought was, sure the entire nation of Israel moved around to go to the city were their families were supposedly from, because the Roman's new that was so efficient.

I can only think the Romans thought it would work because everybody was off for the Christmas holidays.

[rurallib]

1. but I thought the story came from Jesus' blog?

[edhopper]

2. You can't believe

everything on the internet.

[rug]

3. why don't we discusss billboards

again.

[edhopper]

4. I am sure we will

how do you feel about more Americans think the Nativity story is historically accurate than believe in Climate Change?

[rug]

5. That's a glib statement.

I'd need to see the surveys.

In the meantime, I'm more concerned that more Americans support capitalism than not.

[edhopper]

6. here

http://time.com/3634258/majority-of-americans-believe-the-story-of-jesus-birth-is-historically-accurate/

Our economy is based on capitalism. Why shouldn't Americans support it? The question is how regulated it should be. (Very in my opinion)

[rug]

8. Because capitalism is based on exploitation and reduces human beings to commodities.

These primaries demonstrate who is writing the regulations.

As to the Pew survey, this is the relevant graph.



It asked the respondents if they believe four things. That is a question of faith. It did not ask if those clasims were literally true or historically accurate. Those are two different things.

Interestingly, on average 40% of the "unaffiliated" answered the same way.

BTW, ask cleanhippie if he can read a graph. He's too busy snarking from behind a tree downthread for me to ask.

[edhopper]

9. You should start an OP

about capitalism. Probably in GD or the economy forum.

Your parsing is interesting, but irrelevant. True but didn't happen?

How much of it do you believe actually happened as portrayed in the Bible?

[rug]

11. I have. But compared to the question of wether there is a manger, it serves to establish priorities.

Much of the Bible is "True but didn't happen". Whether there was myrrh and shepherds is not the point. Do you think Luke in proclaiming the good news in the first century CE should have spoken of the hypostatic union instead of angels?

I can't give you a percentage of what I literally believe in the Bible but I appreciate the language used and the time in which it was written.

[edhopper]

13. That isn't an either or

we can talk about both.

That true but didn't happen is a puzzler.

[Yorktown]

19. I love this sentence: "Much of the Bible is "True but didn't happen""

It's kinda true, but maybe not, not all of it, bits, but not sure..

[rug]

20. No, your paraphrase is off.

True, but not necessarily the way it's described.

Here, read Sonnet 130:

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

Do you know what he's talking about?

Do you also believe she had black wires growing on her head?

[edhopper]

22. Most Christina don't believe

It is only allagory.

That is a nonsensical comparison.

[rug]

24. Most christians do not believe the Bible is literally true throughout.

[Yorktown]

28. Do they agree on the bits which are real?

Was Moses real? When?

Exact Pharaoh?

[rug]

33. For the most part, they do

You really should frequent sites other than your usual for information.

[Yorktown]

37. It would be amusing to see what you think my 'usual' information sites are.

[edhopper]

32. Strawmasn alert

We are specifically talking about the Nativity story.

100% argument is irrelevant.

[rug]

35. Comprehension alert.

The two prior posts were about the Bible. Your post was about "It:.

[edhopper]

38. It refered to the Nativity

Hope that clears it up for you.

[rug]

43. Then I'll simply refer yo back to post 11.

[edhopper]

44. For someone who posts

so many OPs on every type of religious story here. And with special attention to atheists.
That is a strange position to take.

[rug]

45. Why? It's a succinct answer to a trite topic.

[edhopper]

46. I will simply refer you back to post #44.

[rug]

49. In that case I will siply refer you to this.

http://www.mcescher.com/

[edhopper]

52. I'll see that

and offer this;

[IMG] [/IMG]

[rug]

55. Checkmate!

[edhopper]

56. I can't beat that from my tablet.

[rug]

61. Never bring a tablet to an internet fight.

[edhopper]

70. Back at the PC before bed

[IMG][/IMG]

[rug]

71. Bastard!

[Yorktown]

27. Thanks, rug, I know parts of the Bible are poetry

I was talking about the bits that claim to deliver information, as you probably guessed.

Are those 'informative' bits poetry too? Or are there real info bits? And which?

Was Moses real? When?

[rug]

36. Tell you what, yorktown, just post the sites you use for the historicty of Moses. And Jesus.

I don't need a link, just the sites.

[Yorktown]

39. No site, rug. None. Why would I need a site to document something that never existed?

Now, you tell me, as a believer, when you think Moses lived.

The line of Pharaohs is well documented.

I am just waiting for you, a believer, to tell me with which of the Pharaohs 'Moses' conversed.

Take all the time you need.

[rug]

42. The evidence is to the contrary.

Unless you've just been sitting around contemplating the existence of Moses.

It's one of a quiverful of statements that antitheists pass around like a virus as a stifling conversation starter.

Check your anti-Islam sites you've posted.

So, tell me, what is the basis you're using to say Moses never existed?

I can wait too, until I go to bed.

[Yorktown]

48. Why on earth do you suppose I need a website to know there was no Moses?

Egyptian history is well documented. They kept extensive records of goods for tax purposes.
There is no evidence of a significant population of slave Hebrews.

On the contrary, we have evidence of a Semitic dynasty ruling over Egypt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyksos

Besides, taking Jewish texts, they themselves give tentative dates for the existence of Moses
"Moses was born in Egypt on the 7th of Adar of the year 2368 from creation (1393 BCE)"
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/73398/jewish/Moses.htm
But for some obscure reason, they always shy away from deciding which was Moses' Pharaoh.

Strange, don't you think? Could it be because it would be easy to debunk?
Why do you yourself shy from it? Is it so difficult for you to name that mysterious Pharaoh?

By the Jewish dates, it should be Ramses II. What you you think? Give me your best guess.
Why are you so shy on the subject?
Doubts?



PS1: fyi, there is a life outside websites. And there are such things as books.
Very informative tools.

PS2: I do not need to visit anti-Islam sites. I have the Quran and hadiths.
It's enough to debunk Islam.

[muriel_volestrangler]

50. You're really going to claim that Moses existed?

If you had some evidence, world fame, chairs at prestigious universities and endless writing and lecturing opportunities would be yours. Strangely, no-one has ever managed to produce any evidence. Because history and archaeology are both against it, perhaps.

[rug]

53. Read closely, muriel. Your pal claims he didn't.

I'm sure the thought emerged, filly formed, from his brow.

It's the lingua franca of certain sites.

You're really going to claim there are not antitheist websites who thrive on that topic?

But since we're here, do you claim that it is the settled consensus of historians, archaeologists and biblical scholars that such a person did not exist.

If you do, then post just one objective link that states that claim is a settled and decided issue in those disciplines.

It shold be easier than Shakespeare or Homer.

[muriel_volestrangler]

58. Here's an example of the history of the area at the time:

http://www.bu.edu/anep/Ir.html

[rug]

60. Which does not establish whether or not a Moses existed.

If there was such settled research, it would be global front page news.

Instead, that notion resides in the sewers of the internet surrounded by speculation and gleeful bias.

[Yorktown]

63. You sound desperate to avoid a simple question: the Pharaoh of Moses

I gave you a Jewish source dating Moses making the Pharaoh Ramses II.

Simple question: do you agree with the dates and Pharaoh?

Why does it seem so difficult to answer a simple question?

[rug]

65. You sound desperate to deflect from your Moses claim.

No, you don't sound desperate, you are desperate to avoid it.

[Yorktown]

67. rug, do you believe this 'Moses' existed? If so, when?

There, you see, it's easy: you claim to be a believer.

I am simply asking you some precisions on your belief.

I won't add a smiley because they tend to distract you from issues.

[rug]

72. I assume there was some sort of tribal leader who coalesced the nation.

The Bible is notoriously unreliable as to dates, which is to be expected, so I wouldn't hazard a guess.

See, to believe that there was a divine intervention into humanity does not require a clay tablet marking the date. The intervention is the essential thing, not the date, the reign, or even the epoch. "True but didn't happen."

[Yorktown]

73. But that tribal leader was not prisoner in Egypt; nor was there an exodus.

So your "True but didn't happen." is so loose as to mean the Bible story is meaningless.

The verifiable facts are wrong: slavery in Egypt, 10 plagues, 40 years Exodus, it's all bogus.

Which lends great credentials to the ludicrous parts of the story (burning bush, tablets,..)

[rug]

83. Not really.

Given the scholarship that's around, it's not difficult to separate the literal from the allegorical, the rhapsodic from the prosaic.

It's not a loose interpretation, it requires Some knowledge, the ability to seek more and an intelectual rigor about it.

To the contrary, encountering a talking snake and exclaiming "This is all bullshit!" is the lax approach.

I understand why it's a common reaction. I never got past "The wandering Rocks" in Ulysses.

[Yorktown]

85. The Iliad and Odyssey is pretty heavy too: fell from my hands

But back to good old Moses:

I would not grumble over allegorical bits in the story, old times steeped in 'magic', OK
I would not scoff if there were some mistakes here and there: stuff happens.

The problem is that the story is wholesale fairy tale:
No date, no exact locations, very tall claims (a telltale sign of internet legends), zero historical corroboration (sinai exodus, signs of captive hebrews, record of 10 plagues)
The King has no clothes: when you start asking what exactly in the story is true, might be true, you come out with very little that is believable.

Try it, rug, try constructing what you believe the real story might have been, later enlarged into myth. I doubt you can come up with anything believable that would not make the end result in the Bible appear like ludicrous claims.

That is where the buck stops: the Moses tale is too tall.

[edhopper]

77. That is a curios take to me

I promise I won't challenge, though i may ask something further.
If the Exodus story isn't true, as it appears in the Bible, and the Moses figure is a just tribal leader who helped coalesce other tribes in the area around Israel, what form did the divine intervention take?
Sounds like very similar to other civilized city states forming in that area, without divine intervention.

[rug]

84. It's the same reason evoltion does not ultimately negate creation.

If you believe the world was created in six days, that a breath on mud created man and a rib, woman, evolution is devastating.

But, in the more conventional notion, that at some point God intervened in the evolutionary process and at that point the generation of Man came into existence, the two notions are more complementary than contradictory.

[edhopper]

87. I get that

I'm not saying your take is contradictory.
It just seems to me that Moses as a tribal leader that forms a city state doesn't need it, and it is similar to all the other states around there. Not contradictory, just superfluous.

How do you think the divine intervention worked in this case?

[rug]

88. The essence of the story is that a man, who became an important political and spiritual leader,

which in this case is inseparable, had an unsought encounter with God. (Sounds like Mohammad so far.)

In that encounter, YHWH laid out and revealed the purpose for the existence of humankind. The rest is history, sort of.

Now, did this really happen? Who knows? If it did, how critical is the particular time, the particular name, the chemical composition of manna?

In The Principles of Psychology William James wrote: "The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook"

He wrote this a dozen years before his seminal The Varieties of Religious Experience.

Something remarkable happened five thousand years ago, give or take a half millennium. No one has to believe any of it. But it engenders a vast curiosity, of which archaeology is only a small part, that goes far beyond a man who may have been called Moshe.

[edhopper]

89. I see

thanks

[Yorktown]

90. There is no way the Moses story could have happened 5000 years ago

Something remarkable happened five thousand years ago, give or take a half millennium. No one has to believe any of it. But it engenders a vast curiosity, of which archaeology is only a small part, that goes far beyond a man who may have been called Moshe.

The Hebrews separated/became distinct from their original group (Sea People) early in the second millennium BCE. Which puts 'Moses' in the -1500 to -1200 time bracket.

[edhopper]

91. I think he is saying

something happened in which man formed into a more civilized society.
He is saying divine intervention might have been part of it. Similar to what he said about evolution.

I don't agree, of course, but that was not specifically about Moses.

[Yorktown]

92. OK, I misunderstood, but still, why 5000 years ago?

The emergence of the concept of deities out of the ancestor or nature spirits known in animism is prehistorical, presumably taking place in Neolithic religion; at the time of the setting in of the earliest written records in the Early Bronze Age, the concept is fully developed in the religions of the Ancient Near East.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deity#Ancient_religions

[edhopper]

93. Anything more you will have to take up with rug

I was just trying to understand his perspective.

[muriel_volestrangler]

64. It shows the kingdoms of Israel and Judah weren't established by a refugee population from Egypt

Boston University is not a 'sewer', though.

Why would you think that the accepted history and archaeology (that Israel and Judah started as Hebrew kingdoms, developing from Canaanite origins, roughly around the time of Solomon) is 'in the sewers of the internet', while you have no trouble calling young earthers' views "intellectually, theologicaly and scientifically stunted"? They just believe in the historicity of Genesis, while those who believe Moses existed take Exodus and following books as real. Both involve miracles, a genocidal god, and events that would have left archaeological evidence which has never been found.

This name calling - "sewers of the internet" - looks like an ad hominem argument.

[rug]

66. Boston University isn't stating Moses did not exist, though.

That would be you and Yorktown.

Oh, the internet is not a "hominem".

[muriel_volestrangler]

68. They don't need to. They give the historical explanation.

Look up the history and archaeology of Britain, and you won't find academics worrying about Brutus, or Lear. Most won't have anything to say about Arthur either, though they might speculate if there was some war leader around whom myths were constructed. But they don't involve a story of a mass migration of hundreds of thousands of people that would have left evidence.

American history and archaeology doesn't bother dismissing the Book of Mormon either, although it has a similar historical basis to Exodus.

Your attack on academic sources like Boston University as a sewer is effectively an ad hominem, even if they're an institution.

[edhopper]

57. No, no, no

wait for Passover when I start a thread about what bullshit the Exodus story is.

[Yorktown]

69. Anyway, rug refuses to even suggest a ballpark date for Moses

Which is sad, really, because it would help check the potential historicity of this character.

[muriel_volestrangler]

25. "is an event that actually occurred" - so it was if literally true and historically accurate

and for the virgin question, "was born to a virgin" is about a simple fact too.

You appear to be reaching for some 'truthiness' excuse. As for the 'unaffiliated', for 30% of them, religion is 'very' or 'somewhat' important to them; and another 39% are 'nothing in particular', but not 'agnostic' or 'atheist'. So it's not that surprising 30 to 53% will accept a story (the non-miraculous 'laid in a manger' claim gets the highest figure).

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/13/a-closer-look-at-americas-rapidly-growing-religious-nones/

[rug]

40. Who are what are you qouting, "is an event that actually occurred"?

If you don't talk about what I "appear" to be doing, I won't talk about your unwarranted inferences.

I'll bookmark your post for the nex time someone proclaims the "nones" are are nonbelievers.

[muriel_volestrangler]

47. It's what you posted in #8

The question wording is given at the bottom.

Did you not know about Pew's "nones" category before? I guess you don't read the polls too closely, then.

[rug]

51. Oh, the foot note.

That refers back to the actual wording for the survey's questions contained in the this pdf:

http://www.pewforum.org/files/2014/12/Christmas-report-2014-topline.pdf

Start with question 87.

I now how Pew treats 'nones" There are posters here(to whom I was referring, not Pew) who do not.

[muriel_volestrangler]

54. Yes. Did it not occur to you you ought to read the question before posting about it?

It would help you make fewer mistakes if you did. When I put it in quotation marks, that should have given you a clue was was a quotation. You could have looked at your post again, rather than having to ask for help in seeing what the question was.

[rug]

59. Did it occur to yo to read the question before quiting a foot note?

Those questions in no way support the headline or the inference taken from the survey.

Questioning you on your quote from a footnote scarcely constitutes asking you for help.

Maybe next time you can post the survey's topline questions.

[muriel_volestrangler]

62. The foot note says what the question was.

Yet you didn't know what it was, despite being the footnote in an image that you posted yourself. You couldn't work out, and didn't think to check, that it was the wording of the question, so you had to ask for help, in #40.

I did post what the questions were.

[cleanhippie]

7. What would be the point? Apologists would just try to defelct from it, as already demonstrated.

They have no desire to discuss the complete absurdity of the story at all. To do so opens them to the absurdity of their entire religion, and we can't have that!

[skepticscott]

10. A certain (former) poster here

would have accused anyone trying to show how silly the whole story is of being a "literalist", because she apparently needed to lump sane, rational people together with fundamentalist religious nutballs.

[rug]

12. Do you consider literalism an accusation?

I know it's easier for you to mock Magi and angels rather than the underlying message but it's established that literalism is indeed one way to read scripture, apparently your preferred way. But it's quite a stunted way to understand something, assuming understanding is the goal.

[edhopper]

14. So all those who believe

the story is literally and historically true are stunted?

[rug]

16. The young earthers? Yes, their views intellectually, theologicaly and scientifically stunted.

Contrary to the memes in here, most religions do have substantial consensus (a theological MIRT). The outliers do not define the religion.

[edhopper]

17. Haven't we established

that this is not a fringe belief?

And no, no link, I won't rehash that stuff. It's settled as far as I'm concerned.

[rug]

18. I can think of one group that has to its satisfaction, if that's who you mean by "we"

But now, they are hardly representative of Christianity, and not representative of Catholicism at all, its largest component.

Scientific young earth creationism has had a very short history.

[edhopper]

21. You've seen the polls

about beliefs in this country. Why deny that denying evolution, or thinking the whole nativity is historically accurate is more than a fringe belief.

Making it just young earthers is disengenuos, BTW.

[rug]

23. scirntific yong earthers are a specific subset.

And, to close the circle, I'd need to see the poll.

[Yorktown]

29. When the reading is non literalist, who decided how to interpret the texts?

For instance, what should one do if they see Canaanites or Amalekites in the vicinity?

And will god help?

[Lordquinton]

74. We're into claiming the Pope is a fringe believer

That or the Pope doesn't think any of the bible is literal, and that he isn't the direct divine connection to god, which is literally his job title.

[safeinOhio]

15. Firs time in recorded history when

Christians celebrated Christmas was the year 336. I'm sure the story changed and grew over that time.

[whathehell]

26. Considering your lack of recs, I'm guessing the answer is "No".

[edhopper]

30. recs aren't common on this Forum

but it does have 27 posts in it.
Where do you fall 9n the historic accuracy of the Bible's Nativity story.

[whathehell]

75. I can understand why..

Not interested in discussing the "historical accuracy" of anything in the Bible, the Torah, or the Tibetan Book of The Dead, for that matter.

[edhopper]

76. I don't think

this Forum is for you then

[whathehell]

78. Not at this time, perhaps..

[larkrake]

31. no

[PatrickforO]

34. Cute. 'I can only think the Romans thought it would work...'

More likely, the early Christian 'fathers' had to twist the birth circumstances around that way so they could refer to prophesies in the old testament, and so they could co-opt other mythologies. Let's not forget that in about 2000 BCE, images were painted on the walls of the temple of Luxor showing the Egyptian god Taht announcing to a virgin queen that she is about to become a mother, and her subsequent impregnation by the god Kneph holding an Ankh to her mouth. Then, of course she gave birth to the man-god, who was adored by three kings...

Mythology is also rife with death/rebirth stories which symbolize a seed 'dying' by being cast into the ground and being reborn as a plant.

I mean, why do you think they call Easter 'easter.' It comes from the Celtic Ostara, which is the spring equinox.

It is too bad we're so stupid that we take this mythology literally, because these archetypes live within all of us.

This is why the text where Jesus says he is the way, the truth and the life and no man can come to God but through him is so dangerous and perverted. But you can see why the Christian 'fathers' wrote that in because in order for Christianity to spread across Europe like a virulent disease, it had to first displace older religions. And it wasn't just 'displace' either. They were killed and their property confiscated.

Lots of genocide going on under the name of Christ...

[edhopper]

41. Thanks

interesting post.

[DavidDvorkin]

79. Imagine the economic disruption

Requiring everyone to return to their native city for the census would have destroyed the Empire.

[edhopper]

80. And why were there people

like the Inn keepers still there to tell the family they had no room.
It all seems highly inefficient from the practical Romans.
Why not just ask them were they are from, I worked the Census in 2010, it takes 10 minutes.
What is the point of making people move around just to count them.

[DavidDvorkin]

81. Plot necessity

It explains so much in fiction.

[edhopper]

82. And yet

the majority of people think this actually happened.

They have to or the whole religion falls apart.

If Jesus' birth is just a fairy tale, what happens to all the divine, son-o-God stuff?

[DavidDvorkin]

86. I know

It's amazing to me.