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Was Gerald Massey a 19th Cent. Cuckoo Banana-Bird or Was Jesus Volguus Zildrohar lord of the Sebouil

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Robert Tulip

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Re: Was Gerald Massey a 19th Cent. Cuckoo Banana-Bird or Was Jesus Volguus Zildrohar lord of the Sebouil

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Flann 5 wrote:believe whatever they like however bizarre.
Compare

1. A man walked on water, was born from a virgin and came back from the dead.

2. Old stories evolved from one culture to the next.

Which is bizarre?

This thread is all about aggressively attacking the second statement, in order to defend the first.
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stahrwe

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Re: Gerald Massey was heavily peer-reviewed by top Egyptologists

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FTL99 wrote:
"The Mythicist case has been rebutted? Really? When did that happen? The arguments of the Mythicist camp have never been refuted - they have only been steadfastly ignored." "...As for this tiresome business about there being "no scholar" or "no serious scholar" who advocates the Christ Myth theory: Isn't it obvious that scholarly communities are defined by certain axioms in which grad students are trained, and that they will lose standing in those communities if they depart from those axioms? The existence of an historical Jesus is currently one of those. That should surprise no one, especially with the rightward lurch of the Society for Biblical Literature in recent years. It simply does not matter how many scholars hold a certain opinion.... "

- Dr. Robert Price, Biblical Scholar with two Ph.D's
When was it refuted?
In part, in the video which started this thread for one place, and in hundreds of other books and videos.

But, more problematic, are arguments like the one FTL99 is providing in the cited quote of Dr. Robert Price. I was curious to see the full quote (the citation provided concludes with ...) and the citation does not specify where the quote is from, so I googled it. The first hit I got was to a Sam Harris posting (https://www.samharris.org/forum/47/viewthread/63459/. So, I looked for the Price quote on that posting and ended up with the same quote that FTL99 provided, not more, not less but there was a link to another web posting (freethoughtnation.com/forums/viewtopic. ... amp;t=3110) which takes us to, you guessed it, Dotty Murdock's page, again with not context or reference to where the quote came from.
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stahrwe

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Re: Was Gerald Massey a 19th Cent. Cuckoo Banana-Bird or Was Jesus Volguus Zildrohar lord of the Sebouil

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geo wrote:
stahrwe wrote:Geo, what is the basis for this statement? Did Frazier explain the removal or is this someone's, perhaps your's, speculation?
I don't remember where I first heard that, Stahrwe. But this Wikipedia article quotes Edmund Leach, a British social anthropologist, and Jonathan Z. Smith, a historian and religious scholar.
The book scandalized the British public when first published, as it included the Christian story of Jesus and the Resurrection in its comparative study. Critics thought this treatment invited an agnostic reading of the Lamb of God as a relic of a pagan religion. For the third edition, Frazer placed his analysis of the Crucifixion in a speculative appendix; the discussion of Christianity was excluded from the single-volume abridged edition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Bough

Thank you, I am trying to find the 1890 edition of TGB on Archive.org see what Frazer said.
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Re: Was Gerald Massey a 19th Cent. Cuckoo Banana-Bird or Was Jesus Volguus Zildrohar lord of the Sebouil

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stahrwe wrote: BTW, that's Justin Martyr. He's the reason people who died for believing in Jesus and calling themselves Christians, and not renouncing Christianity, are called 'martyrs.' I am not familiar with Aristides of Athens but I am researching him now.
This wiki article on the concept of martyrdom does not even mention Justin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyr

The following passage from the Catholic Encyclopedia states Christians were already suffering for their beliefs when Justin was converted:

St. Justin Martyr, who owed his conversion largely to the heroic example of Christians suffering for their faith, incidentally gives a glimpse of the danger of professing Christianity in the middle of the second century, in the reign of so good an emperor as Antoninus Pius
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09736b.htm

The same article states that martyr appeared in early Christian literature and does not in any way state that Justin Martyr had anything to do with it:

The Greek word martus signifies a witness who testifies to a fact of which he has knowledge from personal observation. It is in this sense that the term first appears in Christian literature; the Apostles were "witnesses" of all that they had observed in the public life of Christ, as well as of all they had learned from His teaching, "in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts 1:8).

In this short article from Christian History, nowhere does it state that Christian martyrs were name for Justin:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/histor ... artyr.html

Where did you get your information?
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Robert Tulip

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Re: Gerald Massey was heavily peer-reviewed by top Egyptologists

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stahrwe wrote:When was it refuted?...Dotty Murdock's page, again with not context or reference
For a start, stahrwe's insulting allegation that Murdock was insane again shows his pure malice and hatred. Such personal vilification of a great scholar in the name of fundamentalist proselytising should not be acceptable language, and helps to show the rotten stench emanating from traditional faith.

The best summary I have seen of the total failure by apologists in their alleged refutation of mythicism was provided by Earl Doherty at http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/CritiquesRefut1.htm
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Re: Was Gerald Massey a 19th Cent. Cuckoo Banana-Bird or Was Jesus Volguus Zildrohar lord of the Sebouil

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stahrwe wrote: Thank you, I am trying to find the 1890 edition of TGB on Archive.org see what Frazer said.
Frazer made a lot of unsupported assertions in the Golden Bough, and so I think it's considered a rather dated source and, yet, very influential when it was first published. You would be better off looking at more modern scholarly works if you're actually interested in comparative mythology. Here's a lecture by Sir Edmund Ronald Leach entitled "The unpublished Frazer Lecture" that seems like a good overview of Frazer's work.
-Geo
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Re: Was Gerald Massey a 19th Cent. Cuckoo Banana-Bird or Was Jesus Volguus Zildrohar lord of the Sebouil

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Robert Tulip wrote: 1. A man walked on water, was born from a virgin and came back from the dead.

2. Old stories evolved from one culture to the next.

Which is bizarre?

This thread is all about aggressively attacking the second statement, in order to defend the first.
According to astrotheology the twelve named apostles in the gospels are allegories of the twelve sign of the zodiac. Now Paul speaks of Peter and other of the apostles having wives in one of his letters and of going up to Jerusalem to discuss the gospel and circumcision with Peter, John and James who he elsewhere refers to as the brother of the Lord.

Paul went up with Barnabas to Jerusalem and met with them. Now it should be plain as daylight that Paul was not going up to Jerusalem to discuss these things with signs of the zodiac!
http://biblehub.com/niv/galatians/2.htm
How anyone can interpret Romans astrotheologically beats me. Paul was plainly opposed to pagan religions and the idea that Paul is talking about legal justification and righteousness before God on the basis of the death and resurrection of the sun is simply ludicrous. Just read Romans.

At the end of the day the astrotheologists and mythicists will not be convinced by any reasonable arguments and evidence so it's a waste of time even trying.
On theism the first statement is not absurd at all. You merely appeal to your naturalistic presuppositions as though these were proven which they certainly are not.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLZdOGCE5KQ&t=138s
Last edited by Flann 5 on Thu Mar 30, 2017 7:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Was Gerald Massey a 19th Cent. Cuckoo Banana-Bird or Was Jesus Volguus Zildrohar lord of the Sebouil

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The link to Earl Doherty's ad for is book provides nothing pertinent to this discussion.

There is:
No mention of Horus on the page
No mention of Mithras on the page
No mention of Anup on the page
No mention of December 25th on the page
No mention of Gozer the Gozerian on the page
No mention of ....

What there are numerous mentions of is Doherty's book. It is essentially an advertisement.
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Robert Tulip

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Re: Was Gerald Massey a 19th Cent. Cuckoo Banana-Bird or Was Jesus Volguus Zildrohar lord of the Sebouil

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stahrwe wrote:The link to Earl Doherty's ad for is book provides nothing pertinent to this discussion.
There is: No mention of Horus on the page No mention of Mithras on the page No mention of Anup on the page
No mention of December 25th on the page No mention of Gozer the Gozerian on the page No mention of ....
What there are numerous mentions of is Doherty's book. It is essentially an advertisement.
You are totally without shame. Utterly appalling.

This shocking example of deceitful evangelical pulpitry from stahrwe completely ignores all context and logic by thumping out the same rhetorical garbage, safe in the assumption that the purpose is not shared scholarship but protecting a flock of ignorant believers who see knowledge as dangerous.
Last edited by Robert Tulip on Thu Mar 30, 2017 11:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Robert Tulip

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Re: Was Gerald Massey a 19th Cent. Cuckoo Banana-Bird or Was Jesus Volguus Zildrohar lord of the Sebouil

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Flann 5 wrote:
Robert Tulip wrote: 1. A man walked on water, was born from a virgin and came back from the dead.
2. Old stories evolved from one culture to the next.
Which is bizarre?
This thread is all about aggressively attacking the second statement, in order to defend the first.
…On theism the first statement is not absurd at all. You merely appeal to your naturalistic presuppositions as though these were proven which they certainly are not.
No Flann, you don’t get it.
Naturalistic presuppositions, which inform the coherence of all modern knowledge, cannot be proved, but are assumed a priori, as necessary conditions of experience. We cannot prove the universe exists but we assume it as an axiom that makes elegant sense.

Science assumes the universe exists and that matter/energy obeys consistent coherent laws of physics.

Anyone who suggests events that conflict with observed and corroborated universal laws of physics is indeed guilty of absurdity, despite your bizarre statement to the contrary. As Hume argued, it is far more likely that you are wrong or deceptive than that any alleged miracles actually occurred.

Massey and similar writers explain how study of the evolution of myth applies the same causal principles used by Darwin in biology. But your criticism of Massey is nothing more than ‘stop the world I want to get off’.
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