Disprove god!

I recall Plotinus thoroughly debunking most of these. Most of those Pagan myths had to reinterpreted to be closer to Christianity before it made any sense to claim that Christianity borrowed from them. The other resurrection deities were clearly associated with the yearly cycle of seasons, which Christ was not. The Roman Cult of Mithras is younger than Christianity, and none of the aspects that Christians supposedly borrowed from it are found in Persians sources about the deity upon which it may or may not have been based. Things like a December 25th birthday are not very relevant, as no one in the early church believed that Jesus was born then.
I suppose people look at things differently based on their opinions. For me I don't believe in God so I look at these religions and compare them to Christianity from a neutral viewpoint, and I see alot of similarities. I find there to be far to many occasions and similarities for it just to be coicidences.

As for ressurection dieties being related to seasons and Jesus is not, well he is, isn't he? Christmas is the tradional winter festival and Easter the tradiotional Spring festival? I pointed that out already.

As for Roman Cult of Mithras, well actually the timing was the same as that of when the first alleged writings of Jesus appeared, the end of the 1st century CE. Strange that I think.

What is your definition of a solid historical source?
In the case of Jesus, a would consider a solid historical source to be a primary source that was not written by a Christian. There are none that we know of. In fact there are even any primary sources at all. All secondary sources.

Do you know of any solid historicial sources that are more contemporary to the events in Judea between 29AD and 33AD?
Not off hand, I don't any primary sources from then, but given there was the First Jewish–Roman War 66–73 CE it wouldn't surprise me if much information from that time was destroyed. I imagine much of the information from that time is Roman sourced anyway.

You said 93-94AD is 60 years after Jesus dies. How can he die if he never existed in the first place? What date do you give for the death of Jesus? What solid historical source did you use to arrive at that date?
Allegedly died, according to Christianity.


If you have already decided on a conclusion, that Jesus never did exist, then you can cherry pick your solid historical sources to support your conclusion. This is why your arguments were dismissed as 'cherry picking' and 'illogical.' This Wikipedia Article claims "virtually all modern scolars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed and biblical scolars and classical historians regard theories of his non-existance as effectively refuted."
Same could be said of thsoe who believe in Jesus as 'the son of God'. All ready made up their minds, so don't want to hear opinions otherwise.

My belief that Jesus did not exist as the figure that we are 'taught' about is based on lack of reliable sources from the 1st Century CE, and the fact that Christianity became such a dominant religion over the past 2000 years that it's 'assertions' about history have rarely been questioned.

Additionally given how turmoil the region was at the time it makes perfect sense that 'chinese whispers' would have developed perhaps a religious leader of some sort into a myth such as Jesus. I'm just speculating now though, don't take this as part fo my debate. People need leaders when fgaced with an oppressive foe such as the Romans, and the Jesus figure makes a very strong icon in such a struggle. Can see why people would have so easily wanted to belief in him, and then perhaps this is what people in later years when the wars had settled down heard about, and thus started to write about. Who knows?
 
Thanks Bezerker. You made the credibility of your claims crystal clear to me :)

cant leave without taking a last shot, real classy

You still miss the overall point. Your original argument is that ancient texts "know things" because they list the nine planets in the solar system, but according to you the only reason there are nine planets is because your clearly authoritative text says so. So the argument why your text is a reliable source depends on statements made in the text. That's illogical.

There are 9 planets to them, how we define the term is irrelevant. Now it just so happens that we had 9 planets ourselves until Pluto was demoted, but in their text, a celestial god - once a companion of Saturn - was sent off on its own to become their 9th planet. Pluto fits that description... The text says Marduk was "Clothed with the halo of the ten gods, he was strong to the utmost, As their awesome flashes were heaped upon him." They list all 10 - the Sun and 9 planets. Scholars even recognize some of these "gods" as planets, but people supposedly couldn't have known about them all... Apparently they did, they even left us a picture of their solar system on a cylinder seal - and they aint alone. The Inca did too - and they match up.

I still have no idea how this works. First of all, how can a disk "point" to something? Saturn's and therefore its rings' tilt is ~26°, Pluto's orbital inclination is ~11°. Maybe there is a constellation where Saturn's rings "point" to Pluto (the only way I can understand this is that Pluto is in the same plane as Saturn's rings, which still isn't what I understand as pointing), but there is nothing special to that constellation and it may be very rare. The rest of the time, I can't imagine how Saturn's rings point to Pluto under any conceivable definition of "point" (much less how you were able to draw the three-dimensional map necessary to figure that out, for that matter).

Saturn's equatorial plane intersects Pluto's orbit near its perihelion.

Why do I need a creation myth? I don't claim that all truths have a corresponding myth here, that's your shtick. It's pretty common knowledge that there were no planets associated in Greek/Roman myth with Neptune, Uranus and Pluto, simply because the only planets known to them (as in observable to them) were Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn (and Earth, although they didn't think of it as a planet).

You need a creation myth because you said ancient peoples believed in 5 planets while dismissing myths identifying more. The Greeks had a pantheon of 12 - same as the Middle East. They even said some of their gods came from the east - including Neptune. Aphrodite came from Cyprus I think, but she is Ishtar or the sumerian Inanna. Dante's sources for his Inferno were Roman (Virgil?) and Greek (cant remember) and he has 9 levels - those are the 9 planets. Cultures all over the world envisioned the sky in layers, or steps - those are the planets, our solar system

With all due respect, I think we have given your crazy theories more respect than they deserve already.

if thats how you show respect, do a Ziggy and leave - go learn some manners

... and this relates to actual reality how?

You were confused by the text and I offered clarification. It relates to reality in that the text describes 3 "gods" between the Sun and Tiamat and 4 more gods beyond her - thats the sun and 8 planets with Saturn's companion as the 9th. And that puts Tiamat outside of Mars before creation, where the face of the deep was covered by water and darkness - just as Genesis describes the world before the "Light" of creation.

That's not an argument for why destiny = orbit. It's just as arbitrary, unless you can provide some linguistical evidence.

I wasn't offering one, I was explaining why your insult was illogical - these are planets, what else would make sense? They go around the Sun, that is their destiny. You think plugging anything in there works just as well, it doesn't.

Yes, but nothing about war gods, much less any reason to identify them with Venus and Mars, much less any reason to identify them with the planets of that name.

They were to become associated with war gods - Inanna/Ishtar became Venus but she was a warrior goddess too in Sumerian times.

But Uranus and Neptune didn't "come afterward".

Yes they did:

Anshar and Kishar were formed, surpassing the others.
They prolonged the days, added on the years.
Anu was their son, of his fathers the rival;
Yea, Anshar's first born, Anu was his equal.
Anu begot in his image Nudimmud.

I don't know what that's supposed to mean.

It means History Buff challenged anyone to provide a religious based claim about the world that could survive his withering critique ;) I gave him Gen 1:2 and Ziggy jumped in demanding why myths he got at wiki didn't support Genesis - HB disappeared and I got stuck with a pile of straw and a load of crap.

I can only guess, but I could think of two possibilities:

a) they identify deities with planets because that's what the ancient Mesopotamians did, which doesn't imply that their creation myth actually details the origins of the solar system.
b) they are horrible pseudoscientifical hacks and don't deserve the term "scholars".

So scholars are undeserving hacks if they identify planets in the Enuma Elish? Or they're identifying planets because thats what the Mesopotamians did? Your insults require more thought
 
Dante's sources for his Inferno were Roman (Virgil?) and Greek (cant remember) and he has 9 levels - those are the 9 planets. Cultures all over the world envisioned the sky in layers, or steps - those are the planets, our solar system

No. Dante named the layers of Heaven after the the Sun, the Moon and the five planets, not the layers of Hell. It would make no sense at all to suggest that Hell was also an analogue of the Celestial Spheres.
 
In the case of Jesus, a would consider a solid historical source to be a primary source that was not written by a Christian. There are none that we know of. In fact there are even any primary sources at all. All secondary sources.

Primary sources are very hard to come by. The only primary sources I can think of are Matthew and John. Both of these sources are Christian.

Going to the internal source, from Matthew, Chapter 28, Verses 11 to 15: (HCSB)
Spoiler :

As they were on their way, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. After the priests had assembled with the elders and agreed on a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money and told them, "Say this, 'his disciples came during the night and stole Him while they were sleeping.' If this reaches the governor's ears, we will deal with him and keep you out of trouble." So they took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been spread among Jewish people to this day.


Now we have a story of what the Jewish people were saying about Jesus at the time the book of Matthew was written. This suggests that the Jewish people believed (knew) that Jesus existed. It also suggests that they could not find the body.

Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews 93-94AD) and Tacitus (Annals 116AD) are non-Christian sources making references to Jesus.

Not off hand, I don't any primary sources from then, but given there was the First Jewish–Roman War 66–73 CE it wouldn't surprise me if much information from that time was destroyed. I imagine much of the information from that time is Roman sourced anyway.

Here is another Wikipedia article proposing April 3, 33AD along with some explanation how they arrive at that date.

Allegedly died, according to Christianity.

This was being picky, but here you were starting to reverse on the idea that Jesus never existed in the first place.

Same could be said of those who believe in Jesus as 'the son of God'. All ready made up their minds, so don't want to hear opinions otherwise.

My belief that Jesus did not exist as the figure that we are 'taught' about is based on lack of reliable sources from the 1st Century CE, and the fact that Christianity became such a dominant religion over the past 2000 years that it's 'assertions' about history have rarely been questioned.

Here is where you acknowledge that Jesus did, in fact, exist, but his status got elevated. Now you are saying that the primary sources are very hard to come by and for a very long time the Church has been the dominant source of authority for most of the past 2000 years. Disagreeing with the Church had very bad consequences like being burned at the stake and only relatively recently has this been a subject for open discussion.
 
Berzerker, you're claiming that the number nine in the Babylonian creation myth refers to the number of planets in our solar system? I find that quite odd, since there are definitely not nine planets in our solar system, no matter how you count them. If we see planets as spheres orbiting a star which have cleared all debris in their orbits, then there are eight. If we take away the last requirement of the debris, then there are more than nine.
 
In the case of Jesus, a would consider a solid historical source to be a primary source that was not written by a Christian. There are none that we know of. In fact there are even any primary sources at all. All secondary sources.
Josephus?

There are 9 planets to them, how we define the term is irrelevant. Now it just so happens that we had 9 planets ourselves until Pluto was demoted, but in their text, a celestial god - once a companion of Saturn - was sent off on its own to become their 9th planet. Pluto fits that description... The text says Marduk was "Clothed with the halo of the ten gods, he was strong to the utmost, As their awesome flashes were heaped upon him." They list all 10 - the Sun and 9 planets. Scholars even recognize some of these "gods" as planets, but people supposedly couldn't have known about them all... Apparently they did, they even left us a picture of their solar system on a cylinder seal - and they aint alone. The Inca did too - and they match up.
Then all you have said so far contains no real argument for why the texts you are talking about match reality.

Saturn's equatorial plane intersects Pluto's orbit near its perihelion.
What's special about the perihelion?

You need a creation myth because you said ancient peoples believed in 5 planets while dismissing myths identifying more.
No, I don't. The Greeks were aware of only 5 planets (because they are the only ones that can be observed with the naked eye), so we can only be certain that they identified these planets with the gods of the same name.

The Greeks had a pantheon of 12 - same as the Middle East. They even said some of their gods came from the east - including Neptune. Aphrodite came from Cyprus I think, but she is Ishtar or the sumerian Inanna. Dante's sources for his Inferno were Roman (Virgil?) and Greek (cant remember) and he has 9 levels - those are the 9 planets. Cultures all over the world envisioned the sky in layers, or steps - those are the planets, our solar system
:rolleyes:

You were confused by the text and I offered clarification. It relates to reality in that the text describes 3 "gods" between the Sun and Tiamat and 4 more gods beyond her - thats the sun and 8 planets with Saturn's companion as the 9th. And that puts Tiamat outside of Mars before creation, where the face of the deep was covered by water and darkness - just as Genesis describes the world before the "Light" of creation.
But my original question was "what is Tiamat in this contrived analogy?".

I wasn't offering one, I was explaining why your insult was illogical - these are planets, what else would make sense? They go around the Sun, that is their destiny. You think plugging anything in there works just as well, it doesn't.
Oh, circular logic again. They are planets, and therefore the text must talk about orbits. Don't believe they are planets? But why is the text talking about orbits then? :crazyeye:

What you are doing is plugging in random things, I was just joining your game. They are planets, planets have temperature. After they are created, they reach a certain temperature, that is their destiny. What else would make sense?

Still waiting for linguistical support.

They were to become associated with war gods - Inanna/Ishtar became Venus but she was a warrior goddess too in Sumerian times.
Interesting, Venus wasn't a warrior goddess at all. Do you admit that Ishtar and Venus are not the same?

Yes they did:

Anshar and Kishar were formed, surpassing the others.
They prolonged the days, added on the years.
Anu was their son, of his fathers the rival;
Yea, Anshar's first born, Anu was his equal.
Anu begot in his image Nudimmud.
I was talking about the planets *sigh*

So scholars are undeserving hacks if they identify planets in the Enuma Elish?
Yes.
 
Primary sources are very hard to come by. The only primary sources I can think of are Matthew and John. Both of these sources are Christian.

Going to the internal source, from Matthew, Chapter 28, Verses 11 to 15: (HCSB)
Spoiler :

As they were on their way, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. After the priests had assembled with the elders and agreed on a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money and told them, "Say this, 'his disciples came during the night and stole Him while they were sleeping.' If this reaches the governor's ears, we will deal with him and keep you out of trouble." So they took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been spread among Jewish people to this day.


Now we have a story of what the Jewish people were saying about Jesus at the time the book of Matthew was written. This suggests that the Jewish people believed (knew) that Jesus existed. It also suggests that they could not find the body.

Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews 93-94AD) and Tacitus (Annals 116AD) are non-Christian sources making references to Jesus.
The Gospel of Matthew was not written by 'Matthew'.
The Gospel of John's authorship is disputed.
Both were written many years after Jesus's apparant death.

Josephus I have already discussed. It is often said that the writing style where he mentions Jesus is 'out of charachter' comapred to his other works. Again years later as well.

Tacitus also writing years later. What i'm getting at is that it would have been easy for a myth to spread quickly during the turbulant times thenm and people would have thus then wrote about the myth/stories they were hearing as 'fact' because that was how things were done then.

I guess it's how you want to see things. I see no writings from before the 70's CE which is a good 40 years after his apparant death, and I understand that's pleanty of time for a story to have developed. And those writings are questionable, so really it's not till around 100CE, and 70 years is a long time, particuarly when they didn't have the kind of record keeping we do today! You obviosuly want to believe, so take them without question. I won't beleive unless i'm presented evidence from his apparant lifespan, and there isn't any at the momenent, so there we go.
Here is another Wikipedia article proposing April 3, 33AD along with some explanation how they arrive at that date.
I'm repeating myself now but Spring festivals were very common so replacing them with a Christian festival would have been a priority for those early christians spreading their religion, no matter how they determined the date.


This was being picky, but here you were starting to reverse on the idea that Jesus never existed in the first place.
NO I wasn't, your just being picky about my use of language!
Here is where you acknowledge that Jesus did, in fact, exist, but his status got elevated. Now you are saying that the primary sources are very hard to come by and for a very long time the Church has been the dominant source of authority for most of the past 2000 years. Disagreeing with the Church had very bad consequences like being burned at the stake and only relatively recently has this been a subject for open discussion.
Not at all. I was just speculating about how myths could have come about. Jesus as the Son Of God or a miracle performer did not exist, that is what I believe. Claiming some religious leader of the time as Jesus is pointless because there would have been alot of religious leaders at the time, it's like claiming the film Saving Private Ryan is real because there was a World World 2 and there would have been many Private Ryan's and some probably needed saving at some point!

Josephus?
Is an unreleiable secondary source!
 
There are plenty of historical figures who are less well-documented than Yehoshuah of Nazareth, and yet people rarely quibble about their existence. Why make so much of the inevitable murkiness surrounding this figure, just because some people attribute certain magical or divine attributes to him?
 
There are plenty of historical figures who are less well-documented than Yehoshuah of Nazareth, and yet people rarely quibble about their existence. Why make so much of the inevitable murkiness surrounding this figure, just because some people attribute certain magical or divine attributes to him?
Because this thread is about God, and Jesus is an essential part of the Christian belief.
If you make people question Jesus, then they must by default question their belief in God.
If you want to make threads debating the truths about other historcal figures then feel free to do so, i'll paricipate if I have anything relevant to say.
 
That seems backasswards. Most people have moved away from theism have done so because theistic narratives ceased to be convincing, not because the historicity of Jesus was brought into question and they were apparently so very simple minded as to be unable to conceive of a non-Christian theology.
 
That seems backasswards. Most people have moved away from theism have done so because theistic narratives ceased to be convincing, not because the historicity of Jesus was brought into question and they were apparently so very simple minded as to be unable to conceive of a non-Christian theology.
I am posting based on the thread title and the OP. Feel free to post other method's to 'Disprove God' if you have any.
 
I am posting based on the thread title and the OP. Feel free to post other method's to 'Disprove God' if you have any.
What about your argument contributes to a proof of the non-existence of god? An argument about the inaccuracy of Christian theology, mebbe, but that still leaves you open to any number of monotheisms that aren't premised on the existence of this one guy.
 
Well, since the OP never defines what God to disprove that makes it extra special difficult.
Exactly, even if ComradeDavo was successful on his quest to disprove the non-existence of Jesus and therefore (the Christian) God, Ondskan would just appear and assert that something else is God. I mean, he did already assert that the Invisible Pink Unicorn and he himself are God in two hypothetical scenarios.
 
What about your argument contributes to a proof of the non-existence of god? An argument about the inaccuracy of Christian theology, mebbe, but that still leaves you open to any number of monotheisms that aren't premised on the existence of this one guy.
To believe in the Christian God is to believe in Jesus as the Son Of God. It is an integral part fo the belief. Surely you can see how it is then that to question Jesus is thus to question the existence of the Christian God?

Of course if you want to look at God from a Islamic or Jewish viewpoint (or any other) then the Jesus argument is either different or irrelevant. I am of course focusing on the Christian God.

Well, since the OP never defines what God to disprove that makes it extra special difficult.
Indeed, hence why the focus on the Christian God, as the majority on these forums are from the Christian west.
 
To believe in the Christian God is to believe in Jesus as the Son Of God. It is an integral part fo the belief. Surely you can see how it is then that to question Jesus is thus to question the existence of the Christian God?

Of course if you want to look at God from a Islamic or Jewish viewpoint (or any other) then the Jesus argument is either different or irrelevant. I am of course focusing on the Christian God.
Most Christians hold that there are natural as well as revealed justifications for the existence of god. Even if you managed to "disprove" the revealed justifications, I don't think that really means that you've demonstrated the non-existence of their deity. "The Christian god" isn't so much a discrete deity as one conception within a more general Abrahamic-Platonic tradition, and you'd only be suggesting that they should migrate towards a more robust conception within those broader terms.
 
Most Christians hold that there are natural as well as revealed justifications for the existence of god. Even if you managed to "disprove" the revealed justifications, I don't think that really means that you've demonstrated the non-existence of their deity. "The Christian god" isn't so much a discrete deity as one conception within a more general Abrahamic-Platonic tradition, and you'd only be suggesting that they should migrate towards a more robust conception within those broader terms.
To believe in Christian God is to believe in Jesus as the Son Of God. Simple.

What they gonna do if shown Jesus wasn't what he was supposed to be, or didn't exist at all. Rewrite the Bible?

Also can I ask what religion are you, if any?
 
To believe in Christian God is to believe in Jesus as the Son Of God. Simple.

What they gonna do if shown Jesus wasn't what he was supposed to be, or didn't exist at all. Rewrite the Bible?
Presumably they'd adapt their theology accordingly. It's not as if the Christian tradition is lacking in non-Biblical lines of thought; as I said, most Christians hold that there are natural in addition to revealed arguments for god, and those of a more rationalist bent would tend to say that these are in at least some sense primary, because they offer a foundation for acceptance of revealed truths.

Possibly they could even retain the Christ-narrative for its symbolic and ethical value, regardless of its historicity; if as vehemently anti-Christian a thinker as Nietzsche is willing to deal with it on those terms, there must be something more to it than simply fancifully inaccurate history.

Also can I ask what religion are you, if any?
Atheist, although of a humanist god-as-insufficient bent rather than a Dawkinsian god-as-error one.
 
Presumably they'd adapt their theology accordingly. It's not as if the Christian tradition is lacking in non-Biblical lines of thought; as I said, most Christians hold that there are natural in addition to revealed arguments for god, and those of a more rationalist bent would tend to say that these are in at least some sense primary, because they offer a foundation for acceptance of revealed truths.

Possibly they could even retain the Christ-narrative for its symbolic and ethical value, regardless of its historicity; if as vehemently anti-Christian a thinker as Nietzsche is willing to deal with it on those terms, there must be something more to it than simply fancifully inaccurate history.
For me, adapting their faith when a fundamental pillar of it was 'disproven' would be a sign that the faith itself is without a doubt flawed. I think alot of others would feel that way as well.

Atheist, although of a humanist god-as-insufficient bent rather than a Dawkinsian god-as-error one.
Ok. So your questioning my tatics of disputing religion then?
 
I find it likely that some dude named Jesus walked on the ground, not on the water, two millennia ago but it's not even close to proving God's existence even if he performed some tricks widely known as miracles. Vice versa his possible non-existence is not a definitive proof God's non-existence but it'd make the Christianity looking even more weird than it already does.

G
 
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