Has anyone read Eric Hoffer's The True Believer (subtitle: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements)? I think he hits the nail on the head with this quote:


Quote:

“So tenaciously should we cling to the world revealed by the Gospel, that were I to see all the Angels of Heaven coming down to me to tell me something different, not only would I not be tempted to doubt a single syllable, but I would shut my eyes and stop my ears, for they would not deserve to be either seen or heard.” (Luther) To rely on the evidence of the senses and of reason is heresy and treason. It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible. What we know as blind faith is sustained by innumerable unbeliefs. The fanatical Japanese in Brazil refused to believe for four years the evidence of Japan’s defeat. The fanatical communist refuses to believe any unfavorable report or evidence about Russia, nor will he be disillusioned by seeing with his own eyes that the cruel misery inside the Soviet promise land. It is the true believers ability to “shut his eyes and stop his ears” to facts that do not deserve to be either seen or heard which is the source of his unequaled fortitude and constancy. He cannot be frightened by danger nor disheartened by obstacles nor baffled by contradictions because he denies their existence. Strength of faith, as Bergson pointed out, manifests itself not in moving mountains but in not seeing mountains to move. And it is the certitude of his infallible doctrine that renders the true believer impervious to the uncertainties, surprises and the unpleasant realities of the world around him. Thus the effectiveness of a doctrine should not be judged by its profundity, sublimity or the validity of the truths it embodies, but by how thoroughly it insulates the individual from his self and the world as it is. What Pascal said of an effective religion is true of any effective doctrine: it must be “contrary to nature, to common sense, and to pleasure”.

I think religion can be a very good thing, but I'm startled at the petulant nonsense I sometimes see coming from believers. The last quote I read was "I don't believe in science anymore". Sometimes I really wonder if religion is the way Dawkins described it, like some kind of "virus of the mind". On the other hand, one can also be a one-eye materialist, closing one's mind to all but dogma in a "closed universe". I left the last forum I was on because I just couldn't hack the ridiculous ideas and beliefs. Didn't want to be an obnoxious dick, so I decided to blow off my steam by deleting my account. But really, was the Grand Canyon formed 6,000 years ago? And did Noah have kangaroos and koalas on the Ark? I suppose I should keep an open mind on that one.  :D

You see, the real problem with religion is that it SCREWS people's minds. And makes them believe out of necessity, not reality. It can be pretty mind-distorting, and even make people believe that Noah, or even Jesus Christ, actually existed.  

Ray_A wrote on Mar 30^th, 2008 at 3:52pm:

You see, the real problem with religion is that it SCREWS people's minds. And makes them believe out of necessity, not reality. It can be pretty mind-distorting, and even make people believe that Noah, or even Jesus Christ, actually existed.

Agree compeletly Ray_A.

How many wars are based on and fed by "fire and brimstone".?

So many contradictions in the bible ..

oceanz wrote on Mar 30^th, 2008 at 3:58pm:

Agree compeletly Ray_A. How many wars are based on and fed by "fire and brimstone".? So many contradictions in the bible ..

The Bible should win an award for the best fiction presented as reality. I'm sure Job really existed.  :D

People's minds are already screwed. I see just as much bigotry coming from some atheists who see science as some kind of moral compass. Religion is not the cause, it's just the language in which it is expressed.

freediver wrote on Mar 30^th, 2008 at 4:13pm:

People's minds are already screwed. I see just as much bigotry coming from some atheists who see science as some kind of moral compass. Religion is not the cause, it's just the language in which it is expressed.

I have ample criticisms of atheists already posted on the web. The devoted atheist is no different than the devoted believer. And that's why I referred to Hoffer's The True Believer.

The "true believer" is "on the march", everywhere. His/her religion can only be differentiated by claims. Both claim to be "ultimate truth" (though atheists clothe this with, KNOWING, which is an ironical repetition of the religious version of "knowing truth")


There are two types of people who aroused my skepticism. The believer who claims to know "all truth", and the unbeliever who claims to have the definitive answers to "all truth".

Both need to wash this dogma down with a chicken-chilli kebab.

if every person only believed what the specifically saw with their own eyes then every generation would have to start again. the entire basis of our knowledge is through writing.

basing belief on jesus through the scriptures is much the same as believing that hannibal existed through reading livy. nothing one eyed about that.

Not many people doubt that Jesus existed.

The vast majority of athiests I have chatted with are very good people.
I like them, have time and respect for them.

Yep, religion gets it wrong when it forces its own specific beliefs onto others.
When freedom of choice/speech is denied, there is something fundamentally wrong.
Spiritually wrong.

freediver wrote on Mar 30^th, 2008 at 7:09pm:

Not many people doubt that Jesus existed.

That's true. Even historians generally accept this. I think such a figure probably did exist, at least a prophet who, according to Jewish tradition, "led the people astray". He was considered by the Jews to be a false prophet. However, I think the Jesus historical traditions are much exaggerated. The problem is that when you examine secular or extra-biblical sources for Jesus' existence, there's precious little, and no contemporary accounts exist, not even in the Bible (they were written much later). I've looked at this in quite a lot of detail. If anyone can find me a contemporary account of Jesus' life, by first hand witnesses, and written by non-believers or simply contemporary observers, or from any contemporary historical record which records facts (which we have of Julius Caesar, for example, in much detail, and he lived long before Jesus) about Jesus which correlate with the events of the time, then they will go down as the first person in history to reveal this.  Search all you want, and you will find nothing, and it has been debated to death.

Hi Ray,
Good posts you do.  Witty.

A roman historian mentioned early christians .


"Tacitus was a Roman historian who wrote 'Annals' in 115 CE. He talks about the Emperor Nero's persecution of Christians in Rome in 64 CE. There had been a great fire in Rome which people thought had been started by Nero to clear room for a big new palace.
Tacitus wrote:
"To dispel the rumour, Nero substituted as culprits, and treated with the most extreme punishments, some people, popularly known as Christians, whose disgraceful activities were notorious. The originator of that name, Christus, had been executed when Tiberius was Emperor, by order of the procurator Pontius Pilatus. But the deadly cult, though checked for a time, was now breaking out again not only in Judea, the birthplace of this evil, but even throughout Rome, where all the nasty and disgusting ideas from all over the world pour in and find a ready following."
Annals 15 : 44.
Tacitus did not like Christians. He said:
•      Christ was executed while Tiberius was Emperor (14-37 CE).
•      He was executed by order of Pontius Pilate (procurator from 26-36 CE).
•      His movement had its origins in Judea.
•      There were enough Christian believers at Rome by CE 64 to be made scapegoats by the Emperor Nero."


http://www.request.org.uk/main/history/jesus/Jesus05.htm


Tacitus does not say Jesus but says "Christus".  He also states specific details that are in agreeance.  


Anyway, my calendar says 2008, BC.  
So something happened 2008 years ago, or thereabouts to start my calendar at 0 AD.

Sprint,

No doubt there was some kind of figure which later historians referred to. I don't dispute that. Jesus was some kind of messianic figure, a radical who sought to refine Judaism. The existence of this "figure" is not what is so much in doubt, but whether he actually did what his enthusiastic followers reported - like walking on water, and rising from the dead. Maybe their accounts are true, but they are unverifiable from contemporary sources, which is no surprise. Even if they were reported, they would not have been believed by skeptics, and most historians are skeptics. There is little question, by the way, that Josephus' account was manipulated by later "apologists" for Christianity. This interpolation does not read consistent with his (Josephus) writing. But interpolation aside, this doesn't make Jesus a fraud.  What I want to understand, and my quest is on-going, is how we separate embellishment from fact. From the historian's perspective, this is not easy. From the believer's perspective, it's quite easy.

The gist of my argument is that proof is shortcoming. But a lack of proof does not substantiate any dogma, including the dogma that "Jesus never existed". History isn't an exact science, and is full of speculation at times, and in the time of Jesus, there were no historians, so to speak, who graduated from Oxford University. The methodical study of history is only fairly recent, and over time this profession, like most, has resorted to "Occam's Razor" definitions of "truth". That is, if it doesn't fit - reject it. I don't think for one minute this method is foolproof. In the end, I think faith is a personal thing.  

Ray_A wrote on Mar 31^st, 2008 at 4:11pm:

Sprint, No doubt there was some kind of figure which later historians referred to. I don't dispute that. Jesus was some kind of messianic figure, a radical who sought to refine Judaism. The existence of this "figure" is not what is so much in doubt, but whether he actually did what his enthusiastic followers reported - like walking on water, and rising from the dead. Maybe their accounts are true, but they are unverifiable from contemporary sources, which is no surprise. Even if they were reported, they would not have been believed by skeptics, and most historians are skeptics. There is little question, by the way, that Josephus' account was manipulated by later "apologists" for Christianity. This interpolation does not read consistent with his (Josephus) writing. But interpolation aside, this doesn't make Jesus a fraud.  What I want to understand, and my quest is on-going, is how we separate embellishment from fact. From the historian's perspective, this is not easy. From the believer's perspective, it's quite easy. The gist of my argument is that proof is shortcoming. But a lack of proof does not substantiate any dogma, including the dogma that "Jesus never existed". History isn't an exact science, and is full of speculation at times, and in the time of Jesus, there were no historians, so to speak, who graduated from Oxford University. The methodical study of history is only fairly recent, and over time this profession, like most, has resorted to "Occam's Razor" definitions of "truth". That is, if it doesn't fit - reject it. I don't think for one minute this method is foolproof. In the end, I think faith is a personal thing.

mark was written 20 years after jesus life, luke and matthew within a few decades after that. hardly not during the time...

the historian Josephus mentions jesus and Jogn the baptist in his Antiquities of the Jews.

Ray - Yes, I'ld agree there is no hard and fast fact Jesus was around.
When he was executed, he was not well known, or a hero, or widely liked.

As you so wisely say :- "In the end, I think faith is a personal thing."

Sprintcyclist wrote on Mar 31^st, 2008 at 9:07pm:

As you so wisely say :- "In the end, I think faith is a personal thing."

I don't know if you've ever read Albert Schweitzer, Sprint, but he researched the life of Jesus and wrote a book about it titled The Quest Of The Historical Jesus; A Critical Study Of Its Progress From Reimarus To Wrede. (1906) Some excerpts:


Quote:

"But the others, those who tried to bring Jesus to life at the call of love, found it a cruel task to be honest. The critical study of the life of Jesus has been for theology a school of honesty. The world had never seen before, and will never see again, a struggle for truth so full of pain and renunciation as that of which the Lives of Jesus of the last hundred years contain the cryptic record."

Quote:

"When we have once made up our minds that we have not the materials for a complete Life of Jesus, but only for a picture of His public ministry, it must be admitted that there are few characters of antiquity about whom we possess so much indubitably historical information, of whom we have so many authentic discourses."

But I think Schweitzer puts it best here, and it encapsulates why there is such a fascination with Jesus:


Quote:

"The study of the Life of Jesus has had a curious history. It set out in quest of the historical Jesus, believing that when it had found Him it could bring Him straight into our time as a Teacher and Saviour. ... But He does not stay; He passes by our time and returns to His own. ... He returned to His own time, not owing to the application of any historical ingenuity, but by the same inevitable necessity by which the liberated pendulum returns to its original position. ... Jesus means something to our world because a mighty spiritual force streams forth from Him and flows through our time also. This fact can neither be shaken nor confirmed by any historical discovery. It is the solid foundation of Christianity."

This is basically how the gospels have also influenced me.  I recognise this "mighty spiritual force" (and I think you do too), and I respect that. Unfortunately I think Jesus was also right when he said that men would eventually kill in God's name, and there will come "many false prophets" claiming to be of God. Is it any wonder that we saw things like the Crusades, the Inquisition, and people burnt at the stake for going contrary to "the word of God" in the Bible? I think the churches have a lot to answer for.

I don't understand the first Schweitzer quote.


Quote:

"But the others, those who tried to bring Jesus to life at the call of love, found it a cruel task to be honest. The critical study of the life of Jesus has been for theology a school of honesty. The world had never seen before, and will never see again, a struggle for truth so full of pain and renunciation as that of which the Lives of Jesus of the last hundred years contain the cryptic record."

freediver wrote on Apr 1^st, 2008 at 8:24am:

I don't understand the first Schweitzer quote. Quote: "But the others, those who tried to bring Jesus to life at the call of love, found it a cruel task to be honest. The critical study of the life of Jesus has been for theology a school of honesty. The world had never seen before, and will never see again, a struggle for truth so full of pain and renunciation as that of which the Lives of Jesus of the last hundred years contain the cryptic record."

I suppose it would help to understand Schweitzer's background ideas. Schweitzer was a believer in the moral and ethical teachings of Jesus, and was heavily swayed by these. He believed Jesus was an eschatological prophet who believed in the imminent end of the world. However, as a historian and theologian looking for the "Jesus of History" (ie, the "real Jesus"), he concluded that Jesus was basically a "failed messiah", pretty much deluded in this sense, and his end of world predictions never came true. This was also evident in Paul, who taught that the end was near, and even advised people not to marry or invest (I can give scriptural references if required), because the "rapture" would soon occur. (For much more detail on this see Damien Thompson's The End of Time: Faith and Fear in the Shadow of the Millennium) In this sense Schweitzer felt this "quest" to discover Jesus was painful, and for a 100 years before him German scholars like Strauss had come to similar conclusions, by studying the "Jesus of History", in contrast to the "Jesus of Faith".  Schweitzer also believed that much of the New Testament was myth and contained the religious views of the writers, who expanded on the teachings of Jesus, Paul probably being the best example, and he is sometimes referred to as the "real" founder of modern Christianity.

Edit to add: Both Strauss and Schweitzer denied the divinity of Jesus. Schweitzer believed he was a radical prophet.

freediver wrote on Mar 30^th, 2008 at 4:13pm:

People's minds are already screwed. I see just as much bigotry coming from some atheists who see science as some kind of moral compass. Religion is not the cause, it's just the language in which it is expressed.

I think you hit the nail on the head. There is a lot of bad stuff coming from the US. The new militant atheism has all the hallmarks of fundamentalist religion.

I might be a small 'a' atheist, but some of the things these guys spout is frightening, and I totally distance myself from them.  On another forum, I asked one guy if he was the 'Atheist Police'. I don't post there now.

Having said that, it's a reaction to the way that religion has been used to manipulate people in the US.

The froth at the mouth atheists are just as bad as the froth at the mouth Christians.  Crazy bastards  :D

We shouldn't make general statements about either religion or atheism on the basis of some of the looney tunes things that are spilling out of the States.

Let's not stereotype. Bigotry and Hypocrisy are bad qualities of humanity - not religion.

muso wrote on Apr 1^st, 2008 at 11:28am:

Let's not stereotype. Bigotry and Hypocricy are bad qualities of humanity - not religion.

It's always worthwhile being reminded of this. In my humble hunching opinion, every atheist has a little bit of believer in them, and every believer has a little bit of atheism in them. Maybe that's why they hate each other so much?  :-/

It's always worthwhile being reminded of this. In my humble hunching opinion, every atheist has a little bit of believer in them, and every believer has a little bit of atheism in them. Maybe that's why they hate each other so much?  :-/

Ray, you're stereotyping again. I actually prefer 'believers' to 'atheists'. Most atheists would not give it a second thought, it's only the 'in your face' variety that would.

Let's take 'Mr Smith' our hypothetical atheist who plays the church organ and considers it bad taste to talk about religion in public, but generally thinks that religion is good for people. He's typical of the real atheists out there.

In their minds they have no awareness of or need for God. They might have thought it through time and time again, but they don't see the harm in it. To them (and me), it's just a bit of fun that other people take some solace from. Why spoil it for them?  

- or the kid that's filling out a form "Mum.... what's my religion?"

muso wrote on Apr 1^st, 2008 at 11:51am:

In their minds they have no awareness of or need for God. They might have thought it through time and time again, but they don't see the harm in it. To them (and me), it's just a bit of fun that other people take some solace from. Why spoil it for them?

Maybe you didn't understand what I was referring to, or maybe I was too brief. When I said "believer", I'm not necessarily referring to a belief in God. I'm using it in the sense Eric Hoffer used it, as in "true believer". He considered militant atheists as "true believers" (in their cause).

However, there are atheists who flirt with the idea of God (even if you're not one - no stereotyping, now). I don't know of anyone more hardcore atheist than Phillip Adams, yet some years ago, after reading Darryl Reanney's book The Death of Forever, he agreed to write the Introduction, and he admitted that he was prepared to revise his opinions about everything, "even God". His friend made him think about his stand on atheism. He hasn't recanted atheism (as far as I know), but he did pause for a while.

Good example. I never miss LNL. Phillip Adams is a genius in my eyes. He seems to be able to speak to many people on so many subjects so easily.  

muso wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2008 at 6:07am:

Good example. I never miss LNL. Phillip Adams is a genius in my eyes. He seems to be able to speak to many people on so many subjects so easily.

I used to be a big fan of LNL years ago, but I don't even listen to radio anymore. I engaged in personal correspondence, both snail and email, with Phillip over quite a few years, sporadically, and even in private correspondence his humour was always present. We shared different views, which kept the correspondence going, off and on, but he always encouraged me to "come and enjoy the fruits of atheism".

Come to the dark side eh? If you want my advice, stay with religion if it's right for you. Everybody is different.

Many people don't know it, but Phillip Adams invented "Life be in it", and became a millionaire as a result of the campaign.

Well I drive 700km plus every week. I'm a self confessed LNL poddie, as well as the Science Show,  'in conversation' and  'the spirit of things'.

All in all I'm an ABC Radio junkie  :D

muso wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2008 at 9:10am:

Come to the dark side eh? If you want my advice, stay with religion if it's right for you. Everybody is different.

I'm not actually involved with any religion. I'm theist, don't go to Church, and even my concept of God wouldn't fit into any religious orthodoxy.


muso wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2008 at 9:10am:

Many people don't know it, but Phillip Adams invented "Life be in it", and became a millionaire as a result of the campaign.

I didn't know that. Explains why he can devote so much time to programs like LNL?  


muso wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2008 at 9:10am:

Well I drive 700km plus every week. I'm a self confessed LNL poddie, as well as the Science Show,  'in conversation' and  'the spirit of things'. All in all I'm an ABC Radio junkie  :D

I drive about 300 klms a night, four days a week, but it's hard to listen to radio when you often have to deal with drunks, or be entertaining people all the time. But I think I learn a lot more from them than I do from radio though.  Fact, I better get moving as "the show" starts back this afternoon.

Muso - I love tjhe ABC radio. One of the few stations where people do not shout at me !!
Should tune into "The Spirit of things " more often.



Ray_A - good luck with your driving.