An Epiphany I've had about the Westboro Baptist Church

[FrankDK]

>  And please don't bring up the difference between the two genealogical records as if that invalidates scripture - one record was for Joseph, one was for Mary. I hope you have enough dignity to not try the cliche attacks.

The fact of the matter is that the genealogies are at odds with each other.  For example, Joseph has two different fathers.  One genealogy for Joseph goes all the way through, and then skips to Mary at the last moment.

> And Bethlehem was Joseph and Mary's original residence. They moved to Nazareth some time after leaving Egypt (which they journeyed to to escape Bethlehem, you may recall).

Except we know from Roman and Jewish records of the time that Nazareth didn't exist in the first century of the Christian calendar.  It didn't come into being until around 100 years after the traditional date for Jesus' birth.  The Old Testament says that the messiah would be a Nazarene, which means a member of a strict and self-abasing sect.  The New Testament writers, having no knowledge of the area, thought it meant someone from a place called Nazareth.

> That much is clear from a dedicated reading of the scripture - which I would suggest to you, if you intend to afflict the comfortable for a few more years. It might help you if you understood the source material a little better. But that's simply a suggestion.

I've read the scriptures, cover to cover.  They are nonsense.  For example, they claim that on Jesus' death, the bodies of dead and buried saints arose from their graves and "appeared unto many."  Yet not a single contemporaneous writer comments on this.  All the appearances of the resurrected Jesus listed in Matthew are in Galilee, while all the appearances of the resurrected Jesus listed in Luke are in Jerusalem.  People remember where they were when emotional events occur.  Clearly, these stories couldn't be from eye witnesses.

> And the teachings of Christ? Regardless of what you think of the man (whether he was God or a psychopath), his teachings are valuable. How could you say that loving your neighbor and sacrificing your needs for someone else's are childish?

There's not a single saying attributed to Jesus that wasn't said by someone else either before him or around the same time.  Jesus ben Pantera had a last supper, complete with the wine and bread.  The golden rule goes back at least to the Code of Hammurabi.  How is "If you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one" valuable?  Even the Lord's Prayer comes from John the Baptist.  

There's no evidence that there was an historical Jesus, and even if there was, his message was derivative and plagiarized.

Frank

[Colanth]

There's no reason for that kind of venom. I accept that you disagree, but there was no call for an attack like that.

What venom, what attack?  Not accepting that your myth is factual is an attack?

I never said anything about Paul.

Paul is our only original source of Yeshua.

I said that Westboro Baptist threw away the teachings of Christ

And I said that "the teachings of Christ" is simply a myth - that no such person existed.

love your neighbor

Hammurabi, basically.  And probably old by his time.

Think what you will about Jesus, but his teachings were never malevolent.

Those of us who think he was purely mythological don't think his teachings were malevolent.  Or existent at all.

And as for the ambiguous dating, well, I am of the very, very tiny group that don't believe the modern scripture is 100% accurate, that's it's been corrupted.

I don't base scriptural argument on "modern scripture", I base it on the Hebrew (for the OT) and Greek (for the NT) documents.

Obviously none of us can know for sure, however, and you seem to be ignoring the many successful endeavors to chart an accurate timeline for the New Testament.

Only if by "successful", you mean the apologistic attempts to prove that they are what they claim to be.  I don't ignore the many evidences that none of the gospels were written earlier than the second century.  (And possibly no earlier than the fourth.)

And Bethlehem was Joseph and Mary's original residence.

Rome required people to return to their PRESENT residences, so where they originally came from was irrelevant.

They moved to Nazareth some time after leaving Egypt

Not possible, since "Nazareth" was invented (probably in the mid-second century, maybe later) to fill the need for a "Nazarene" Jesus.

That much is clear from a dedicated reading of the scripture

Scripture can't be used to prove scripture.

which I would suggest to you, if you intend to afflict the comfortable for a few more years.

I'd suggest that you learn Hebrew and Greek first, so we might be talking about the same documents.

It might help you if you understood the source material a little better.

If 60 years of intense study yields no understanding, it's amazing that we came down from the trees.

And the teachings of Christ? Regardless of what you think of the man

As I said, if "he" was just a myth, he never "taught" anything.

his teachings are valuable.

Teachings like forsaking your parents?  Like keeping slaves?  Teachings like condemning a tree for not bearing out of season?  Yes, very valuable, those.

How could you say that loving your neighbor and sacrificing your needs for someone else's are childish?

I never said they were childish, I said they weren't the teachings of the myth called Jesus.

Even if you think the religion is full of idiots and murderers, the teaching itself is priceless.

And at least 1,800 years old when Paul invented Jesus.

It is far superior to something as useless and banal as Harry Potter

Harry Potter teaches self-respect.  Leave it to a theist to denigrate that.

If I did insult you in any way, please accept my apologies.

God bless you in everything you do.

The apology for that last line is accepted.  It's about the most insulting thing you could have said.

[ApostateLois]

Westboro Baptist by no means represents all of Christianity, let me just say that much.

No, they are not, and we can all be thankful that such extremism is now a rare thing. But they do use Bible verses to support their rabid claims, which leads me to wonder how God could inspire a book that can be so horribly misinterpreted and twisted to suit the most evil agendas of the most evil individuals. I expect better of a god.

And the teachings of Christ? Regardless of what you think of the man (whether he was God or a psychopath), his teachings are valuable.

Valuable and useful, but far from unique. It's not like that's the first time in human history that anyone figured out you should be respectful of other people, be kind to each other, put the needs of others ahead of your own, etc. If Jesus existed at all, he was just another itinerant preacher telling an apocalyptic message to a sinful nation, instructing everyone to give up their possessions because they wouldn't be needing them after God gave everyone the smack-down. Being nice to each other? Well, that was just preparation for the end-times disasters, so that God would find them worthy of entering his kingdom. Jesus fully expected to come back to Earth within a few days of being executed. That, of course, did not work out too well for him.

By the way, Paul's writings actually were written earlier than the gospels. If the gospels were not included in the New Testament, I am sure that Christians would have a very different view of Jesus. They would know nothing of his birth, and little of his death and  resurrection. They would know nothing of the Magi, the magical star (or angel) that guided them to Mary's house, the slaughter of the innocents by Herod, very little of the 12 apostles, and indeed nothing of Mary or Joseph. His miracles, his sermons, his teachings, his trial at the Sanhedrin, the three thieves on the crosses—none of that was known to Paul. Jesus was entirely a spiritual entity, living in the spirit world, fighting a spiritual battle for our souls. Paul never quotes a single thing that Jesus said in the gospels, which is very strange. It's like writing a book about Hitler and never quoting from "Mein Kampf." Why didn't Paul know anything about the physical, earthly Jesus?

[Colanth]

Why didn't Paul know anything about the physical, earthly Jesus?

Because Jesus and the "scriptures" (the OT), his only "sources",  never told him about a physical, earthly Jesus.  That was made up MUCH later.