this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2024
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Religious Cringe

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About

This is the official Lemmy for the r/ReligiousCringe***** subreddit. This is a community about poking fun at the religious fundamentalist's who take their religion a little bit too far. Here you will find religious content that is so outrageous and so cringeworthy that even someone who is mildly religious will cringe.

Rules

  1. All posts must contain religious cringe. All posts must be made from a religious person or must be showcasing some kind of religious bigotry. The only exception to this is rule 2

  2. Material about religious bigots made by non-bigots is only allowed from Friday-Sunday EST. In an effort to keep this community on the topic of religious cringe and bigotry we have decide to limit stuff like atheist memes to only the weekends.

  3. No direct links to religious cringe. To prevent religious bigots from getting our clicks and views directs links to religious cringe are not allowed. If you must a post a screenshot of the site or use archive.ph. If it is a YouTube video please use a YouTube frontend like Piped or Invidious

  4. No Proselytizing. Proselytizing is defined as trying to convert someone to a particular religion or certain world view. Doing so will get you banned.

  5. Spammers and Trolls will be instantly banned. No exceptions.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Historical scholars are not religious authorities

As I've already explained, historical scholars who specialize in that time and that area are almost without exception followers of one Abrahamic religion or the other.

That is an inherent confirmation bias since they'd be showing themselves to be very gullible if they admitted that one of the most important figures in the scriptures that they consider capital T Truth is entirely fictional.

Add the paucity of evidence they base their "Jesus was real" claim on and there's really no rational, evidence-based reason to believe them.

It is more or less a field of scientific study.

History in general, yes. That specific subsection of the field has always attracted religious hacks with confirmation bias, though, always will.

All claims are built on the basis of evidence and logical inferences from the evidence.

Again, the specific evidence for this specific claim is ridiculously lacking. There's more reliable evidence of the sexual orientation of Alexander the Great than there's even sketchy evidrnve of Jesus existing.

I will merely add that your position is not new and in fact it is many decades old

As is the scientific method.

In that timeframe, it has made zero progress at convincing the historical community

Because those specific historians are religious hacks who accept even the most spurious evidence for their preferred result and no arguments against it. Sort of like you.

a major stumbling point appears to be the total lack of an alternative explanation and evidence for it.

First of all, no. A lack of dispositive evidence doesn't make up for a lack of positive evidence. That's not how proof works.

Second, there IS an alternative explanation. One agreed upon by everyone who doesn't believe in bronze age fairy tales:

Jesus was a fictional character based on older mythologies such as that of the Egyptian god Horus as well as other stories and the imaginations of the authors.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

As I've already explained, historical scholars who specialize in that time and that area are almost without exception followers of one Abrahamic religion or the other.

This is a true ad hominem fallacy. Not just personal attacks. You are really dismissing the scientific consensus entirely because you doubt the motivations of everyone involved. This is not the basis of a valid argument.

Again, the specific evidence for this specific claim is ridiculously lacking. There's more reliable evidence of the sexual orientation of Alexander the Great than there's even sketchy evidrnve of Jesus existing.

That's because Alexander was a king, and Jesus was not. The problem with this rationale has always been the same: Everyone except a handful of nobles vanishes from history because very little was written about most people. Even then, the documentation about Alexander is surprisingly scant. Almost no primary sources survive to the present day.

Because those specific historians are religious hacks who accept even the most spurious evidence for their preferred result and no arguments against it. Sort of like you.

Again, a true ad hominem fallacy. Also, I am an atheist just like you. I just happen to not be anti-science on this topic.

First of all, no. A lack of dispositive evidence doesn't make up for a lack of positive evidence. That's not how proof works.

Second, there IS an alternative explanation. One agreed upon by everyone who doesn't believe in bronze age fairy tales:

Jesus was a fictional character based on older mythologies such as that of the Egyptian god Horus as well as other stories and the imaginations of the authors.

That is one theory by one mythicist. In fact, it's the pet theory of Gerald Massey, someone who wrote about the subject in the 19th century. It has zero credibility among modern historians, from either the Egypt side or the Judea side. The person simply didn't know enough about either to make any sort of credible argument. This idea only survives in pop culture.

Other than that, it's been a cavalcade of one idea after another. Every mythicist has his own explanation. There has never been consensus on what the alternative explanation could even be.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You really need to be more honest with yourself. Your position is most definitely mythicism. And a very generic form of it at that.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

MYTHicism! The word he keeps using is MYTHicism! You fucking dingus!