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Suggestions needed for August & September 2011 NON-FICTION book discussion!

Collaborate in choosing our next NON-FICTION book for group discussion within this forum. A minimum of 5 posts is necessary to participate here!
Azrael
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Re: Suggestions needed for August & September 2011 NON-FICTION book discussion!

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Tat anything that goes against this ancient hokey religion thats been crammed down their throats for the last 2000 years is not going to get acceptance. As far as this ancient hokey god man ever existing he was as big a lie as the rest of it. Murdoch did not say that I DID! Mighty damn frigging odd that as long as those who do not accept the status quo keep their mouth shut everything is fine but the minute some one dares to question this so called Christianity the lid blows off! Well I got news for christians if you think that you are the one religion and the only one your wrong! No where in your ancient hokey little book does it say that God accepted you as the only ones on the face of the earth. Man I hate this damn "I am better than you cause I am a cloud boy follower!"
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geo

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Re: Suggestions needed for August & September 2011 NON-FICTION book discussion!

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Azrael wrote:Tat anything that goes against this ancient hokey religion thats been crammed down their throats for the last 2000 years is not going to get acceptance. As far as this ancient hokey god man ever existing he was as big a lie as the rest of it. Murdoch did not say that I DID! Mighty damn frigging odd that as long as those who do not accept the status quo keep their mouth shut everything is fine but the minute some one dares to question this so called Christianity the lid blows off! Well I got news for christians if you think that you are the one religion and the only one your wrong! No where in your ancient hokey little book does it say that God accepted you as the only ones on the face of the earth. Man I hate this damn "I am better than you cause I am a cloud boy follower!"
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tat tvam asi
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Re: Suggestions needed for August & September 2011 NON-FICTION book discussion!

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geo wrote:
tat tvam asi wrote: First off, what "belief" are we talking about?
It's my sense that the theory that's being cultivated in Murdoch's books are that Jesus never existed. I will refrain from further comment until I get a chance to read one of her books. Thanks, Tat.
That's the theory. I wouldn't say that it qualifies as a belief though. Only in the sense that I believe that Jesus may not have been historical in the first place. It's just an agnostic type of position. I don't think that we have enough evidence to move from an agnostic position of uncertainty to an evermerist or believer position. I don't see Murdock as ever telling people that they must believe that Jesus never existed as in the having faith he didn't exist sense. And that's one good example of something that can be asked of her in discussion.
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Robert Tulip

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Re: Suggestions needed for August & September 2011 NON-FICTION book discussion!

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geo wrote:
tat tvam asi wrote: First off, what "belief" are we talking about?
It's my sense that the theory that's being cultivated in Murdoch's books are that Jesus never existed. I will refrain from further comment until I get a chance to read one of her books. Thanks, Tat.
What is interesting here as an opening question is to what extent the mythicist claim that Jesus Christ did not exist qualifies as a belief. To those who have not studied the evidence with an open mind, the mythicist argument looks like a belief just as much as the claim that Jesus did exist is a belief. However, the complete lack of evidence for the story of the Gospels, and the psychological and historical plausibility of the claim that the writers of the Gospels had motive, means and opportunity to fabricate a fictional story, qualifies the mythicist argument as a scientific hypothesis. A hypothesis is not a belief, it is a claim based on evidence that is open to falsification. To date, efforts to rebut the mythicist argument have relied on emotional appeals to apologetics. Examining it carefully will in my view show that the Christ myth theory is an elegant and parsimonious explanation of the facts that will come to be accepted as a mainstream view.

This material is entirely about achieving a scientific understanding of Christian origins. As well, the examination of the links to Egypt opens a whole realm of fascinating analysis of material that is weakly understood in the wider community, for example how the ancients actually based their belief systems in observation of nature, especially the sun and stars. Christ in Egypt is a scholarly work examining questions that have broad social and political implications. Its controversial contents indicate that discussion of it as a Booktalk nonfiction selection would generate a good level of interest.
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geo

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Re: Suggestions needed for August & September 2011 NON-FICTION book discussion!

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Robert Tulip wrote:To those who have not studied the evidence with an open mind, the mythicist argument looks like a belief just as much as the claim that Jesus did exist is a belief. However, the complete lack of evidence for the story of the Gospels, and the psychological and historical plausibility of the claim that the writers of the Gospels had motive, means and opportunity to fabricate a fictional story, qualifies the mythicist argument as a scientific hypothesis. A hypothesis is not a belief, it is a claim based on evidence that is open to falsification. To date, efforts to rebut the mythicist argument have relied on emotional appeals to apologetics. Examining it carefully will in my view show that the Christ myth theory is an elegant and parsimonious explanation of the facts that will come to be accepted as a mainstream view.
Just a few thoughts . . . I agree that there is little evidence for the existence of Jesus and I also agree that the gospel writers were manufacturing myths. Robert Wright makes a pretty convincing argument that the four canonical gospels produce an increasingly progressive message of universal of love whereas the historical Jesus probably cared only for the Jewish people. The Jesus who exhorts his followers to extend charity across ethnic boundaries and who preaches the parable of the good Samaritan doesn't exist in the the first gospel (Mark), written about 70 years after Jesus' death. It just seems more likely to me that a man named Jesus really existed and that his legend was simply embellished over time. We can find lots of examples of such embellishments throughout history. Likewise, it seems unlikely that the entire Jesus story was simply invented. There are some unusual and idiosyncratic aspects to his life that are consistent with a real person being made into a myth rather than a god persona manufactured out of thin air.

Even with a complete absence of evidence, it seems a more parsimonious explanation that some person named Jesus did actually exist who received some notoriety at the time of his life and in the aftermath of his death. This is indirect evidence, but in the absence of positive evidence for an alternative explanation (such as a conspiracy), a real Jesus seems a more logical assumption. Indeed, this is a bit like tracing the origins of an expanding universe and extrapolating a Big Bang that started it all.

Another issue that I can observe (without having read Murdock yet) is that there doesn't seem to be much scholarly consensus for the mythicist argument. This doesn't rule out the mythicist argument, of course, but it does raise some questions for me (as a layperson). If there was compelling evidence for the mythicist argument, it seems likely that other scholars would have taken notice. And this is why the mythicist argument sounds like its leaning towards a belief. Has Murdock written five or six books just to argue that the Jesus story might have been completely fabricated? And ultimately, I'm not sure that it matters if Jesus really existed or not. What does matter is that the Jesus story was embellished and has evolved and become indistinguishable from myth over time.
Last edited by geo on Fri Jul 08, 2011 1:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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tat tvam asi
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Re: Suggestions needed for August & September 2011 NON-FICTION book discussion!

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CiE is more along the lines of addressing apologetics in large part Geo. They say Isis was never regarded as a pre-Christian virgin mother, then the response in the book shows that yes, she actually was. All of these mythological points made in the NT myth that have come in behind pre-existing motif's in the Egyptian religion are sorted out and uncovered.

Near the end of the book Murdock provides the theory that most of the Gospels were not merely filtered through Alexandrian scribes, but could have well been created as a hybridizing religious effort in Alexandria by scribes quoting from the Greek Septuigint, instead of the Hebrew bible, which does tend to explain a lot of the inconcistencies in translation of the OT and the geography of ancient Israel. And the connection between Alexandria and Antioch is nothing to brush off so easily. There were of course plenty of hybridizing efforts previously between Greek and Egyptian gods and myths and this practice was not uncommon at all.

Now nothing in the book proves absoutely that no such historical seed could have been at the base of all of this, but it does tend to show that it is very possible that the entire thing is mythology with no fixed historical core to the onion. It's the chapter by chapter on going investigation and the sources provided that are very interesting to sort through for anyone here @ BT, whether or not they agree with the Christ Myth theory. This is simply a scientific analytical investigation pertaining to comparative mythology and religion studies from a secular angle.
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Robert Tulip

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Re: Suggestions needed for August & September 2011 NON-FICTION book discussion!

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I would like to suggest a vote on three books

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer
Amazon

Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection by DM Murdock
Amazon

America Before the Revolution by Daniel K. Richter
Amazon
(mentioned by Saffron here)
Azrael
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Re: Suggestions needed for August & September 2011 NON-FICTION book discussion!

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I vote this one. No surprise huh.

Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection by DM Murdock
Amazon
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Re: Suggestions needed for August & September 2011 NON-FICTION b

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I'm in for Christ in Egypt by Murdock.
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LanDroid

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Re: Suggestions needed for August & September 2011 NON-FICTION book discussion!

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Wow, scanning through this thread looks like another book on religion would be a big mistake. Both of the others look good. One tidbit on the memory book - the advanced techniques used by the author were also used by Hannibal Lecter. :wink:

Is it too late to suggest something else completely different? I saw a lecture by the author on CSPAN Book TV, very impressive. The book is primarily about the European theater from the German perspective.

The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War by Andrew Roberts.
http://www.amazon.com/Storm-War-History ... 897&sr=1-1
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