Bayes Theorem is a very nice tool. You can apply it to one book of the bible or to the entire bible or to an isolated incident recounted in the bible. If you follow the rules correctly, you'll get to the truth. That doesn't mean the truth is unchanging. It can change if new evidence is found but, absent that, the truth may hurt a bit depending on what your prior probability was.

Using the theorem is a form of navigation and is actually structured the way that navigators work. When a navigator tries to pinpoint his vessel's location, he starts by "dead reckoning." Dead reckoning means you take the speed of the vessel, its direction and the amount of time it takes to travel from the point of departure to a set destination. This will get you in the neighborhood or it should. If it doesn't then you know you have problems. Dead reckoning is a bit like prior probability--it's your jumping-off point and you hope it's in the neighborhood of the truth. If the navigator is near a coastline, he might look for a church tower or a tall building that he knows should be somewhere in his field of observation. If he's out at sea, he will use the positions of the celestial bodies. This is analogous to the student figuring out what evidence he would see if his position is correct and what he would see if the opposing position was correct.

The more readings the navigator takes, the greater accuracy he has in determining his vessel's exact position. Likewise, the more evidence the student gathers, the better he can fine-tune his prior probability.

So Bayes Theorem is a navigation tool. It can tell you where you are with great accuracy.

thanks DB, illuminating as always.

hey DWill

i noticed you typed this

DWill wrote:He doesn't say that this experience accounts for the sum total of what he knows about Jesus

which reminded me that "He" did say this...

who knows wrote:For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

i was just listening to Robert Price's excellent "The Bible Geek" podcast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lMgkMYieQ4

and Dr. Price points out that if you contrast the above scripture with the following scripture

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; 7 then He appeared to [c]James, then to all the apostles; 8 and last of all, as [d]to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, [e]and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

Bob notes it's more a "book of acts approach". "more subordinate to and derivative of the 12, whereas in Galatians it's more 'heck no, i owe them nothing'"

interesting stuff as always on "the bible geek"

another interesting contradiction Dr. Price points out is the following,

The last enemy that will be abolished is death. 27 For He has put all things in subjection under His feet. But when He says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him. 28 When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all.

compare with

which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church,…

so will the real "Paul" please stand up

holy schizo batman

another

For, if we have become planted together to the likeness of his death, so also we shall be of the rising again;

against

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

interesting stuff.

i'm not putting any of that up as some kind of major conclusive thing but rather as part of thousands of things like that which when put together form a fascinating picture that shows there is a whole lot more to this than meets the eye.

He received "the Gospel" from Christ directly. Does that mean everything that he ever heard about Christ or Jesus Christ, including the very existence of Christ or JC? I can argue that it doesn't.

The extended quote is one of many places in his letters where, if you're considering a Paul-thought-Jesus-was-nonexistent thesis, is bound to give you trouble.

In general, to find variations and inconsistencies in these letters written over a considerable period of time isn't so much as peculiar as expected, the way I see it. Not only that, but do even devout Christians claim that Paul is a consistent thinker? You see inconsistency very often in the writings of many authors, and it's part of what makes them interesting. I don't know if you were indicating doubt that the same person wrote these letters, based on the differences. Was Price going in that direction? I guess here I'll have to trust the expert scholars who have separated the true Paul letters from the ones thought to be impersonating him.

DWill wrote:if you're considering a Paul-thought-Jesus-was-nonexistent thesis

i've never thought "Paul" thought Jesus was non-existent!

what a weird idea

does anyone hold it?

youkrst wrote:all it took to get Carrier on board was to simply read Doherty's book. anyone with half a brain and no agenda should get it in a couple of weeks reading... i am left thinking there is some other force at work...

This “other force at work” is something that deserves analysis. It also picks up on my main critique of Carrier’s book, that while he provides brilliant and compelling and masterful proof that Christ is a myth, he avoids the deeper question of why Christianity uniquely met the emerging social needs, and so why this specific myth fits like a key in the lock of its social conditions.

My view is that the story of Jesus still provides such a powerful and seemingly coherent sense of the meaning and purpose of life among believers that questioning it creates a fear of the collapse of all meaning into an existential abyss of bleak despair. The social function of myth is to provide a simple story that explains the nature of reality in a way that delivers a seemingly coherent and cohesive shared sense of what the world really is and how we should live. Christianity has been immensely successful in delivering against this agenda.

The church has taught that an emotional commitment to Jesus Christ as savior of the world can only be inculcated among the mass of believers through a simple historical acceptance of gospel truth. Throughout Christendom that simple phrase ‘gospel truth’ has become a byword cliché for the most reliable and authoritative statements. So to say that the most important and reliable opinions in a culture are actually false creates a sense of bewildering vertigo. As WB Yeats put it in his great poem The Second Coming, the loss of faith is like mere anarchy is loosed upon the world and the centre cannot hold.

What Matthew Arnold called 'the melancholy, long, withdrawing roar' of the sea of faith as its tide went out has left us 'here as on a darkling plain swept with confused alarms'. Arnold gives voice to the modern despair of the absence of God, in a world where the old miraculous myths have lost their meaning.

So what is the ‘other force at work’ that sustains belief against evidence and logic? In line with my philosophical agenda of looking to reform Christianity to reconcile it with science, I find it helpful to examine Christian history with some of its own tools. In this case, the central concept of Calvinism, total depravity, is helpful to understand the psychology of faith.

Calvin and Luther taught that total depravity “is the teaching that, as a consequence of the Fall of Man, every person born into the world is enslaved to the service of sin as a result of their fallen nature and, apart from the efficacious or prevenient grace of God, is utterly unable to choose to follow God, refrain from evil, or accept the gift of salvation as it is offered.” (wiki

I want to recast this teaching to say that the total depravity of the early church resulted in the invention of Jesus Christ. The pervasive fear of an abyss of meaningless despair produced by Roman triumph meant that people had to construct a story to provide a universal counter-meaning to the dominant ideology of empire. In a depraved and bleak world, invention was the only salvation.

This social need was overwhelming in the period of the emergence of the Roman Empire, known as the ‘common era’ because of how it used war to combine hitherto separate societies. The absence of any ethical framework in the raw Roman doctrine of power meant the demand for meaning was so overwhelming that the hope gave rise to the belief in Christ. Fervent fanatical faith would brook no doubt, in a depraved social process that resulted in the mass brainwashing of European Christendom for more than a thousand years.

The church participated in and suffered from the fall from grace into depravity, with its own particular signature of depravity being its imagined fantasy that a fictional story was true. When the messiah failed to arrive he had to be invented, converting hope through despair into belief.

The effort of the church to deliver mass psychological comfort through the dogma that Jesus has saved us through the expiatory sacrifice of his blood on the cross is pure myth. In ethical terms, it covers over and defers the need for a coherent theory of salvation.

We still now need a theory of salvation to overcome despair, but in modern scientific terms this theory cannot be a fantasy of heavenly afterlife, and instead must address real analysis of how humanity can flourish in our planetary existence. What I find truly fascinating within Christianity is the extent that it provides real practical resources for a scientific theory of salvation.

The force at work giving power to the construction of Christianity was the demand for meaning. In a situation where no real meaning was available, the Romans having triumphed in imposing the empty meaning of the sword, a broadly acceptable social theory of meaning inevitably evolved, namely Christianity.

The meaning inherent in the story of a single man who connects our vale of tears to an eternal truth of holy perfection has the power to overcome the despair of hopelessness, as a symbolic social point of unity who delivers stability, security and strategy.

The need for such a connecting symbol for belief was so great that for almost two thousand years no evidence was able to stand in its way, until the emergence of modern freedom and scientific method offered the hope of an even more powerful framework of meaning through knowledge.

By my experience, Christianity is a "needy" religion. It functions on recruiting needy people. That's why so many prisoners become Christians as opposed to Buddhists or Hindus. Hippies and beatniks went for Eastern religions and philosophy solely out of intellectual curiosity. They felt that Western systems were phony and exploited people. You didn't hear hippies saying that Buddha rescued them from drugs. Hell, most of them took the drugs so they could talk to Buddha.

Christianity came into the world at a time when there was no such thing as a middle class. If you weren't rich and aristocratic, you were dirt poor, illiterate, you struggled to survive. Everyday was a struggle. Christianity came to them and offered them a demigod that willingly walked among them, touched them and healed them, indemnified them, validated them. To Jesus, they mattered. He offered them salvation. No matter what they failed to accomplish in life, there was something better waiting for them in heaven. Without Jesus, there was no hope for them.

It's the same exact thing that Islam offers to the downtrodden of today. In a modern, civilized society, you can make something of yourself, you can be somebody. You don't have to be smart, rich or talented. You can be a complete jerk and there's people out there who will love you to death if you can find an avenue to reach them. But in a Muslim society, you are what you are. You are so restricted and restrained with no societal avenues for escape from the hellish bullshit that you cling desperately to Mohammad like a drowning man clings to a piece of driftwood. He offers you the one thing you otherwise will never have--hope. You're willing to put up with the crap if you can convince yourself that things will better when you die, that ol' Mo-baby is up in Paradise watching your back.

That's why the royals push these religions. They discourage revolution. You were meant to suffer in this world because you were meant to reap the rewards that await you in paradise. If I can convince you of this, you'll never challenge my position or authority. You'll go peacefully to your grave without a peep of dissent.

How many become Christians because they were attracted to the elegance of the philosophical underpinnings of the tenets expressed in the Apostle's Creed? Nobody. It's always the same reason: "I was down and out with no hope until Jesus came into my life and rescued me." This is how it has always been. Who were the first Christian converts in Rome? Slaves, prostitutes, the destitute, etc. "Once I was lost but now I'm found, was blind but now I see." That is the whole game.

Christianity has been phenomenally successful because there is so much misery in the world. Islam has been so phenomenally successful for the same reason--because most of them are a howling pack of miserable idiots. Never mind that they bring their own misery on themselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTyeKrV7Uu8

Islamic propaganda, actually laughable, but what they say about the Christian West is no less true.