Conclusive proof that Jesus was NOT divine

[reasonist]

The basic question we should ask the pious is what G.H.Smith asked: (and I do it in red, that seems to be more factual for some)

"The responsibility of explanation lies with the christian. If there is no conflict of reason and faith, why has christianity insisted on rigorous censorship of dissent for 1,500 years? If the catholic church is an institution committed to rationality and truth, why has it subjected dissenters to torture and death? The man of reason, the man concerned with arriving at truth, supports his ideas with reason and evidence - not with a torture rack and stake."

[Unbeliever]

Thou art filled with shame for glory: drink thou also, and let thy foreskin be uncovered: the cup of the LORD'S right hand shall be turned unto thee, and shameful spewing shall be on thy glory.

Habakkuk 2:16

[gentle_dissident]

Authority seeker=willing slave.  And willful ignorance follows.

Ironically, this makes for a less than ideal worker.

[Unbeliever]

There is enough evidence for those who want to find it to be able to do so but not so much as to coerce those who do not.

I heard the same claptrap from the Rosicrucians, the Scientologists, the Southern Baptists, the Seth entity (whatever the hell that was), etc. They all claim that if only I'd accept their worldview (their assumptions) and think hard enough about it, I'd come to see it as obvious: "believe hard enough and it will be true." But this is magical thinking, whether it concerns ghosts, goblins or gods.

Credo quia absurdum (I believe because it is absurd)

Fictional entities can have any attributes an author cares to give them, (e.g., dragons can be nice or mean, vampires can be blood-sucking monsters or hapless victims, etc.) and God, being fictional, can be given any attributes a believer in God cares to give Him (or is told by "authorities" He has). This is why there are so many possible answers to the question: what is God? God is like a Rorschach test - different people see different things when considering what God is.

The atheist does not say," There is no God", but he says, "I know not what you mean by God"; the word God is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation.

I feel similarly, so I could be called a non-cognitivist. Unless the word "God" is well defined, we none of us know what the hell we're talking about when we use the word.

But if an entity has attributes that conflict, that contradict each other, then that entity can't logically exist in anything other than fiction, never in reality with exactly those contradictory attributes. Reality won't allow the existence of a God (or any other entity) that has incompatible properties, and yet God (as in the Judaeo/Christian/Muslim view of Him ) has many such conflicting attributes, at least the theistic, omnimax type of God-conecpt we're all familiar with.

Incompatible-Properties Arguments: A Survey

If a God of this theistic type can't exist in reality, then it does not, in fact, exist I reality.

[reasonist]

Ironically, this makes for a less than ideal worker.

"If the bible and my brain are both the work of the same infinite god, whose fault is it then, that the book and my brain do not agree?"
R.G. Ingersoll

"Where questions of religion are concerned, people are guilty of every possible sort of dishonesty and intellectual misdemeanor."
S. Freud

"However, a moment in history has arrived when even a pigmy such as myself can claim to know more - through no merit of his own - and to see that the final ripping of the whole disguise is overdue. Between them, the sciences of textual criticism, archeology, physics, and molecular biology have shown religious mythology to be false and man made and have also succeeded in evolving better and more enlightened explanations."
C. Hitchens

[21CIconoclast]

PLEASE, quit trying to prove that the biblical character named Jesus was not divine!

I personally need Jesus to be god incarnate to make it easier to show the pseudo-christian Trinitarian to be an outright fool. This is because when Jesus is god, then he is held culpable for all of the horrific murders he did in the Old Testament such as abortions, killing the first born in Egypt, having babies smashed against the rocks, ripping open women with child, forcing his creation to eat their own children, and lest we forget about Jesus' Great Flood scenario, one of the greatest mass murders of all time!

It must be so embarrassing to be a Catholic going into the 21st century, sad indeed.

[reasonist]

PLEASE, quit trying to prove that the biblical character named Jesus was not divine!

I personally need Jesus to be god incarnate to make it easier to show the pseudo-christian Trinitarian to be an outright fool. This is because when Jesus is god, then he is held culpable for all of the horrific murders he did in the Old Testament such as abortions, killing the first born in Egypt, having babies smashed against the rocks, ripping open women with child, forcing his creation to eat their own children, and lest we forget about Jesus' Great Flood scenario, one of the greatest mass murders of all time!

It must be so embarrassing to be a Catholic going into the 21st century, sad indeed.

LOL, OK, I'll posit a different take.

Even if the texts supported the notion that the apostles wrote them, consider the low life expectancy of humans in the first century. According to the religious scholar, J.D. Crossan, "the life expectancy of Jewish males in the Jewish state was then twenty-nine years." [Crossan] Some people think this age appears deceptive because of the high infant mortally rates at birth. However, at birth the inhabitants of the Roman Empire had an even lower life expectancy of around twenty-five years. [source] According to Ulpian, a Roman jurist of the early third century C.E., the average life expectancy at birth came even lower to around twenty-one. [Potter] Of course these ages represent averages and some people lived after the age of 30, but how many? According to the historian Richard Carrier: "We have reason to believe that only 4% of the population at any given time was over 50 years old; over age 70, less than 2%. And that is under normal circumstances. But the Gospels were written after two very devastating abnormal events: the Jewish War and the Neronian Persecution, both of which would have, combined, greatly reduced the life expectancy of exactly those people who were eye-witnesses to the teachings of Jesus. And it just so happens that these sorts of people are curiously missing from the historical record precisely when the Gospels began to be circulated." [Carrier] Even if they lived to those unlikely ages, consider the mental and physical toll (especially during the 1st century) which would have likely reduced their memory and capability to write. Moreover, those small percentages of people who lived past 50 years were usually wealthy people (aristocrats, politicians, land and slave owners, etc.). However, the Gospels suggest that the followers of Jesus lived poorly, and this would further reduce the chances for a long life span. Although the New Testament does not provide the ages of the disciples, most Christians think their ages came to around 20-30 years old. Jesus' birth would have to have occurred before Herod's death at 4 B.C.E. So if Jesus' birth occurred in the year 4 B.C.E., that would put the age of the disciples, at the time of the writing of the first gospel, at around age 60-70 and the last gospel at around age 90-100! Based on just life expectancies alone, that would make the probability unlikely they lived during the writing of the first gospel, and extremely unlikely any of them lived during the writing of the last gospel (and I have used only the most conservative numbers)."
http://www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm

[reasonist]

7 minutes of enlightenment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMo5R5pLPBE

[stromboli]

Excellent video. Truly miss Hitchens.

[Randy Carson]

Excellent video. Truly miss Hitchens.

You can still enjoy the other Hitchens. His brother, Peter.

[reasonist]

...and was consistently outmatched by his brother.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XHv7IQCg-w

the truth always wins.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

You can still enjoy the other Hitchens. His brother, Peter.

Part of the reason I accuse you of making appeals to authority are posts like this one. Reasonist posted Christopher Hitchens' actual argument. You have simply name-dropped his brother. Please present arguments, not authority figures.

[Randy Carson]

Part of the reason I accuse you of making appeals to authority are posts like this one. Reasonist posted Christopher Hitchens' actual argument. You have simply name-dropped his brother. Please present arguments, not authority figures.

But I responded to stromboli.

Excellent video. Truly miss Hitchens.

[Randy Carson]

...and was consistently outmatched by his brother.

the truth always wins.

Have you read The Rage Against God by Peter Hitchens?

I have.

[reasonist]

Have you read The Rage Against God by Peter Hitchens?

I have.

I have. It's sitting right here on my desk, I just dug it out. And now what? Hijiri is right.