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  1. chotki

    David Fitzgerald Spots Christian Myths, Misses Atheist Myths |356|

    I know that as modern Westerners we tend to believe in the myth of linear progress, but history is a bit more complex than that. The truth is that excessively literalist fundamentalism is a product of modernity and not the standard for 2,000 years of theological reflection. So the "average...
  2. chotki

    David Fitzgerald Spots Christian Myths, Misses Atheist Myths |356|

    Indeed. The only way to reach the "Christianity is a cult" conclusion is to start with a very limited, blinkered window onto what is a tremendously diverse, two-millennia-old family of traditions. Well, that and twisting the definition of "cult" so much that Wittgenstein would rise from his...
  3. chotki

    David Fitzgerald Spots Christian Myths, Misses Atheist Myths |356|

    The first thing they teach us in seminary is how to brainwash the lot of you. But we're still not as evil as the law school students.
  4. chotki

    David Fitzgerald Spots Christian Myths, Misses Atheist Myths |356|

    Here we go again... Ok, fine, but you get why that griping is there in the first place, don't you? This is like someone responding, I hate when people tell me that the kid on the street corner who sells me pills isn't a doctor. He's enough of a doctor for me.
  5. chotki

    Worthy conceptions of God

    Well, in classical philosophical theism, most or all of these traits can not only be reconciled, but once properly defined and set in order one logically necessitates the other. A powerful example of a systematic demonstration of interconnected attributes can be found in this lecture by...
  6. chotki

    Joe Atwill Takes on Covert Culture Shapers |354|

    Alex remaining in willful ignorance and rationalizing his emotionally-driven support for Atwill, anyone? It is impossible to define, and difficult to describe the messianology of the early Jews. . . . There is no script the Messiah is to act out. There is no clear, widely accepted Jewish...
  7. chotki

    Joe Atwill Takes on Covert Culture Shapers |354|

    Lots of problems here, so let's get crackin'. Now you're begging the question. You're starting off with a whole set of assumptions and creating a situation where there are no steps toward reaching the conclusion because the conclusion is simply a restatement of the premise. In order to make...
  8. chotki

    Joe Atwill Takes on Covert Culture Shapers |354|

    Another critical point: even if Josephus and Mark share an awareness of a given historical event, that doesn't necessarily mean that either one knew and copied from the other. Josephus could not have written such tedious and detailed history without relying upon a variegated set of source...
  9. chotki

    Joe Atwill Takes on Covert Culture Shapers |354|

    What parallels? Which experts? What sources? I'm not saying that it is logically impossible that the Gospel of Mark was written after The War of the Jews and utilized it as a source. It is unlikely as far as the consensus dates of both documents hold. I am saying that Atwill's claimed...
  10. chotki

    Joe Atwill Takes on Covert Culture Shapers |354|

    You'll have to show me the yuuuuge number of times you've discussed the evidence in detail with Atwill critics, because in my two years on the forum I haven't seen you interact with the actual data pertinent to Atwill's "thesis." You've certainly ignored all my detailed comments in this thread...
  11. chotki

    Joe Atwill Takes on Covert Culture Shapers |354|

    Alex: (posts Atwill video) "Look at all the trees Atwill has found!" Me: "These are actually weeds. Look, I just pulled them up." Alex: "Hey man, it's all about the forest!" Me: "But the forest is made of trees...so, if there really aren't any..." Alex's point #2 above: "Look at all the...
  12. chotki

    Joe Atwill Takes on Covert Culture Shapers |354|

    Baseball, eh? Time to turn a double play. The following are problems and errors I quickly discovered in just a breezy review of the first eight minutes of that video. 1. Atwill says the Romans had "fought against a messianic movement in Judea" and the gospels were meant to replace "that...
  13. chotki

    Joe Atwill Takes on Covert Culture Shapers |354|

    And as I've explained in detail, arguing against an Atwill fan on this very forum, such "evidence" is little more than, as Robert M. Price (no stranger to far-fetched speculation) put it, "the airy bricks" out of which "Atwill's cloudy castle is built."
  14. chotki

    Joe Atwill Takes on Covert Culture Shapers |354|

    Indeed, it does. Which makes your incredulity utterly baffling to me. History matters because it demonstrates that groups can and do undergo radical changes in policy, values, orienting myths, etc. My point, to which you responded, was that it was absurd for Romans to invent the claims early...
  15. chotki

    Joe Atwill Takes on Covert Culture Shapers |354|

    Ummm.... 1. Even if what you said were true, the absurdity is not overturned because the later development of any society, culture, or institution should, of course, not be anachronistically read back into its history. That's like someone denying slavery existed in America 160 years ago because...
  16. chotki

    Joe Atwill Takes on Covert Culture Shapers |354|

    A thousand times, yes. It's not that Christianity appeared completely de novo and sui generis. Indeed, it built upon and yes, revolutionized strands of thought in both Israelite and Greco-Roman tradition. What before was limited according to ethnic obligations, in the former, or within the...
  17. chotki

    Joe Atwill Takes on Covert Culture Shapers |354|

    Alex, You above all people should recognize the fallaciousness and the futility of a bare argument from authority. Let's put the shoe on the other foot. If some materialist decides he's going to prove his point to you by merely quoting a few neuroscientists who say that the mind is an emergent...
  18. chotki

    Joe Atwill Takes on Covert Culture Shapers |354|

    Well, first of all, let me reiterate that "the Bible" is not "pro-Roman." There are gradations of assessment of Roman imperial power within the New Testament, and I have already cited scholarship that notes counter-imperial themes in Mark and Matthew. I can quite easily describe the virulently...
  19. chotki

    Joe Atwill Takes on Covert Culture Shapers |354|

    It's the nature of a crank hypothesis. Build a vast superstructure on a combination of the flimsiest of evidence, misinterpretation, and heavy amounts of speculation, all bolted together by a remarkable confidence that you, YOU, are the one who has peeled away all the layers of the onion. Throw...
  20. chotki

    Joe Atwill Takes on Covert Culture Shapers |354|

    ...which is an all-too-frequently misunderstood saying. :) Richard A. Horsley, "Jesus and Empire," in Richard A. Horsley, ed., In the Shadow of Empire: Reclaiming the Bible as a History of Faithful Resistance (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 89f. For similar assessments...
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