Dawkins told the hateful Bill O'Reilly right to his face that's it's a Judeo-Christian MYTH!

Dawkins said a strong case can me made that Jesus NEVER existed but he thinks Jesus probably existed. There's NO WAY he belives the Jesus that walked on water and turned water into wine existed or he'd be a Christnut!

When you read some of the quotes of Jesus from the Bible, (there are quite a few excerpts featured in The God Who Wasn't There) you get a pretty clear picture that Jesus was anything BUT a nice guy.

I do not personally see very much value in anything that Jesus taught.

speaks condescendingly to Thomas, the only empiricist in the bible...having blind faith is better than searching for evidence of nail holes in my hands, he stupidly opines. 

well, considering his historical context, i think jesus had about as good a message as we can expect from that time period.  let's not unfairly reflect our modern conceptions of morality back on the gospel accounts.

yes, this is very much cultic, but you have to decide which jesus sayings you think are authentic.  jesus's attitude to the family is not consistent across all the gospel accounts.

having said that, in my and many scholars' opinions, this saying is most likely authentic.

well, to be fair, he said "law."  that doesn't explicitly include the narrative portions of the torah (we can't be sure how much of the nevi'im or kethuvim jesus was acquainted with or considered authoritative).  of course, it doesn't explicitly exclude them either. 

also, you have to look at the context.  he said not one jot or tittle of the law would pass away until it is fulfilled, and the apocalyptic jesus of matthew speaking here expected it to be fulfilled damn soon.  even the talmud states that the messianic age will be an age without torah.

once again, in all fairness it wasn't just because the tree didn't give fruit.  it was a dramatic parable, a common teaching tool in judaism at that time (and almost to this day as a matter of fact; we can see similar episodes in the talmud, in hasidic folklore, etc.).  both episodes come from matthew and mark (and in the latter case luke as well), so we're still working in a jewish context, and for jews the whole question of if the episodes had literally occurred would have been immaterial.

even if we are to take both episodes literally, to fault anyone from the first century for not valuing plant or animal life as much as only a tiny minority of people in the 21st century do is grossly unfair.

also, purely as a sidenote, as someone who has worked with pigs several times, i can say the majority of them are far from "harmless."  they can be aggressive, dangerous animals.  i had a great uncle who lost his thumb to a hog as a child.  but that's neither here nor there.

anyway, show me any line of thought from the ancient or classical era that's consistently humane and/or rational, and you'll have definitely taught me something.

Odd how people are always telling the bible readers what it really means.

Granted, I am not grossly outraged over the death of a fig tree, but to curse one for all eternity, figuratively or not, is the behavior of a three year old.

you can't infer that from the biblical text without serious cherry-picking and mental gymnastics.  jesus's divinity was reasoned deductively from the bible, not inductively, not in small part because the council of nicea could see that it was a favorite idea of the emperor constantine.

it was my understanding, based on the op, that we were talking about whether or not the best approximation of the historical jesus we can get from the gospel narratives was a "good moral teacher" who had things of value to say.  i assumed we were NOT talking about the christ of christianity, since what inspired the op was a remark by dawkins, not any sort of christian dogma.

there is absolutely no compelling evidence that whatever religious teacher(s) who inspired the jesus myth ever claimed to be god.  pretty much only christians bastardize the messianic prophecies of the hebrew bible to claim that the messiah will be anything more than a human being--a great human being on a mission from god, perhaps, but still a human being.

the bible has no plot.  it's a collection of texts of a wide array of genres, some of them (the kethuvim, for example) thrown together damn near at random, with wildly diverging messages.  one, esther, doesn't mention god at all.  the "plot" is the pastiche that the christers threw over it centuries later.

if we ever want to establish if "jesus," as opposed to "christianity," had anything "good" to say, we have to approach the texts in their historical and cultural contexts, not their canonical or dogmatic contexts.  in other words, we gotta look at them without the baggage of subsequent centuries.  that's obviously how dawkins reached his conclusion.

You have to separate "early Jesus" from "late Jesus".

"Early Jesus" was more House of Hillel, liberal Pharisaic Judaism, with a lot less of the stupidity that some earlier posters have alluded to.

You also have to remember that he lived (assuming he existed ...) in occupied Judea, where the Romans had a nasty habit of murdering entire cities of Jews just because we weren't all that fond of worshiping pagan gods or Roman dictators.

And finally, while some things may sound impractical or like mental masturbation, they can be effective tools for conflict reduction and resolution and "peace" is a major theme within Judaism.  The word "peace" is actually in the name of the City of David (no, not the House of Bread city, the other one.  With the Temple in it ...)

Easy. Look for his blue period.

ok, well, hillelite pharisees didn't typically preach the immanent eschaton, nor did they speak with charismatic authority (you have heard it was said...but i say to you...).  jesus was far more likely influenced by the essenes than by the pharisees, though he was sympathetic to them.

ok, so if jesus's original "liberal pharisaic" message was corrupted in favor of the gospels' apocalypticism/messianism, then from what sources do we recover it?  because it's barely evident in the gospels.  and just how do you figure paul was "excommunicated" from the jerusalem church?  that there were disagreements is evident from the texts we possess, but nowhere is he outright called a heretic.

and don't forget the essenes were both apocalyptic and messianic, well before the destruction of the temple.  we know that from qumran.  jesus was heavily influenced by essene ideas.  we know that from the gospels and nag hammadi.

sounds to me like you're spouting that modern jewish anti-christian apologetic bullcrap about how "jesus was really a good, god-fearing pharisaic (i.e., proto-rabbinic) jew until you guys stole him from us."  ironic, considering how rabbinic judaism spent centuries maligning jesus all through the talmud and elsewhere, and even today denying jesus is the messiah is a non-negotiable for the majority of judaism.

depends on what manuscript you're looking at, sure.  there are passages in sanhedrin 43a-b and b. gittin 57a that refer to jesus in several manuscripts.  as for post-talmudic smears, the most famous are those made by maimonides in his mishneh torah and epistle to yemen.  the latter has my favorite apellation for jesus, "may his bones be ground to dust," and claims his father was a gentile for some reason, and that his death was indeed instigated by the "sages" and was richly deserved.

i'm not an anti-semite because i frankly don't give a shit if there was a historical jesus, and if there was i could care less if the jewish authorities were responsible for his death.  i only pointed out that jews have historically had a negative view of jesus--more-so than any other false messiahs--because you yourself seemed interested in this weird dichotomy between "early" and "later" jesus, and holding that early jesus was an ok guy, a "liberal pharisee," and his teachings not so harmful after all.  i contend that "early" jesus (by which you seem to mean the jesus of the synoptics) was for the most part an apocalyptic nut, a la harold camping.  except not even he got the money.

so you should have no problem citing hundreds of sources, eyewitness and all, if it's an absolute fact.  other than later church writings (eusebius, et al.) and deuterocanonical books (e.g., paul and thecla), i see no evidence for paul or his life outside the NT, and his "excommunication" ain't in the NT.

oh wait, lemme guess, that dead sea scroll fragment that POSSIBLY talks about AN excommunication on A pentecost that mentions NO names and MIGHT be about paul if we want it to be.  please.  those talmud manuscripts with what might be jesus's name erased are more compelling evidence for jesus than the dead sea scrolls are for paul's excommunication.

beautiful.  so said message does not exist, "liberal pharisaic" or otherwise.  so why did you break on the discussion and start peddling your bullshit?

btw, there is nothing special or intellectually more sophisticated about judaism than any other bullshit religion.  any reasonably intelligent person can grasp it with a few months of study, if they're so inclined.  get over yourselves.  grasping philo and maimonides is child's play compared to being conversant in all the philosophical niceties of shankara or nagarjuna, and about as applicable to real life.  

a. i gave you the tractates and folio pages in which the passages can be found.  i'm sure the talmud is online if you really wanna check up on it.  then again, i'm sure as an expert in all things jewish you have both the babylonian and palestinian talmuds on your shelf.  "jesus the nazarene" is mentioned in one or the other of those passages i cited in the following manuscripts: herzog 1, vatican 130, firenze ii.1.8-9, and karlsruhe 2.  i will not spoon-feed you any more than that, nor can i without doing research you are not worth.

b. i am not competent in aramaic, nor, i wager, are you.

c. i told you in what works you can find maimonides' statements on jesus.  if you must scrutinize them, google works wonders.

d. i am not competent in maimonides' mishnaic hebrew, nor, i wager, are you.

e. who the fuck said anything about burning, stoning, or crucifixion?  sanhedrin 43 a-b says he was "hanged."  but i didn't mention that either, nor was it the point of me citing that passage.

wow, for the person who JUST wrote

that is incredibly ironic.  but luckily i'm familiar enough with two of those sources to know you're spouting more bullshit.

first of all, no it isn't in acts, but i'd like to know which verses led you to that erroneous conclusion.  english will suffice

second of all, i already addressed the qumran text you're referring to (which i'm sure you only read about second-hand), namely, 40266, which is about the excommunication of an unidentified man by an unidentified portion of the community.  there are no names--not paul, not james, nobody.

finally, i've never read of any mention of paul in the talmud, but if you'll furnish me with the coordinates i'll gladly track it down and have a look at it myself.

NEVER MIND THE FACT that even IF this handful of ancient texts actually explicitly mentioned the excommunication of paul (they don't), a handful of ancient texts does not make ANYTHING an "absolute fact."

unless if by "absolute fact" you mean "qualified assumption."

in the aramaic too, i suppose.  anyway, as i said (and in detail--when presented with details i notice you frequently ignore them, and have a dreadful dirth of your own), it depends on the manuscript.

wikipedia has a handy table of the "jesus the nazarene" references they got from peter schaefer's jesus in the talmud about a quarter of the way down this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_in_the_Talmud

ok, i hate resorting to caps, but i'm going to because i'm beginning to think you're skimming my posts: WHY WILL YOU NOT FURNISH ME CHAPTER AND VERSE????  IT'S A RELATIVELY SIMPLE THING TO DO, AND IT WOULD BE RECIPROCATING THE COURTESY I'VE SHOWN YOU!!!!

that being said, tell me exactly from which community you're claiming paul was "excommunicated"?  because initially you said he was excommunicated from the jerusalem church because he taught heresy.  that is NOWHERE in acts, which is why scholars who hold the view of paul as an early christian heretic fall back on that ridiculously vague qumran fragment--which you no longer mention, thus i assume you concede that it's useless as any kind of "proof."  in fact, most scholars who support the idea of paul as a heretic usually say that the episode of the jerusalem council in acts was historical revisionism in paul's favor.

now, however, you say paul was kicked out of "town" and told not to teach "jews."  yes, paul was kicked out of many communities in the acts narrative for his teachings, but the jerusalem church wasn't one of them.   

wow, really?  really, really, really?  we should just blindly accept whatever statements a group makes about ITSELF?  that this is the BEST evidence for determining historical "fact"?  can you honestly not see how preposterous that is?  see, this is where scholarly training comes in handy: anything anyone writes about HIMSELF is automatically held up to scrutiny, ESPECIALLY when it comes to conflicts within a group.  that's precisely why paul's writings about his disagreements with jerusalem (he mentions peter rather than james) are taken skeptically by the majority of biblical scholars.  HOWEVER, no contrary viewpoint of the episode has survived to the present day, especially not one where paul is excommunicated from the church.  we can (and do) HYPOTHESIZE it might have happened, but we have no compelling evidence to state it as "fact."  NONE.  not in qumran, and certainly not in acts. 

hear, hear.

  Well if a universal atheist society sends shivers down your spine then perhaps you could advocate for employing the tactics of your ancient ancestors ?  Whenever they encountered societies whose purposes were crosswise they simply took up arms and eradicated them. 

Morality or one's code of behavior doesn't come from invisble sky daddies that don't exist. A code of behavior in the modern world shouldn't come from anchient Middle Eastern goat herders who's moral code often permitted genocide, infanticide, child abuse, rape, war crimes, murder of homosexuals, etc...

you really are willfully not listening, aren't you?

THERE IS NO "CREED OF ATHEISM."  THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ATHEIST ETHICS OR MORALITY.  ATHEISM IS A DEFAULT.  IT IS A LACK OF BELIEF IN GOD.  IT HAS NO CONTENT.  PEEEEEERIOOOOD.  SEVERAL PEOPLE HAVE TRIED TO EXPLAIN THIS TO YOU ALREADY.

beyond this, we all have different ideologies here.  there are leftists, rightists, anarchists, communists, objectivists, hippies, positivists, pacifists, hippies, squares, etc., etc.  you might have noticed we fight like cats and dogs much of the time.  one thing we do NOT fight about, however, is our LACK OF BELIEF in god.  that is why we gather.  no more, no less.

if you want a picture of how EACH INDIVIDUAL here thinks a world without religion should look, you'll have to ask EACH INDIVIDUAL.  some have a clearly formulated program, others do not--but, yet again, there is one thing in common among all of them: NOT ONE OF THEM EQUATES HIS OR HER PROGRAM WITH "ATHEISM."

PRECISELY!  PRECISELY!  BOOM, YOU GOT IT!

now quit while you're ahead!

  So if your G-d gave you a similar directive regarding atheists who "really deserved it" you'd be on board with it ?

And you see this as a good thing?  You see the lack of any non-negotiable "Universal Declaration Of Human Rights", however so constructed or delivered, as  "good thing"?

One of my later "political realizations", not "religious", but purely in the domain of "politics", was the realization that "Silence" in the face of "Evil" is itself "Evil".  Desmonde Tutu (who is a Christian bishop, I might note) said that support of the status quo is support for evil.  Some other person, who I forget because I need to solder up two more PCBs, said that all that is required for evil to remain is for "good men to remain silent".

What Atheism advocates is amorality, which is, based on this sort of "political realization", nothing more than the lazy man's (or woman's) way to advocate for "Evil" without accepting responsibility.  You get off Scot-free on your "Evil", whether active or passive, because, hey, you're an Atheist!

So, you'd only kill to defend yourself, not your nation?  And you'd only kill people who were actively engaged in trying to kill you, not the people who were waiting to have a chance to kill you, your neighbors, or others who lived where you lived?

Well, you =are= pretty illiterate, I have to give that to you.

Psalms 137:9 refers to G-d exacting revenge against the Babylonians for entering our country, murdering many thousands of Jewish men, women and children, and hauling us off into slavery.  You'll note from history that we aren't the ones who destroyed the Babylonian Empire -- Cyrus and his soldiers handled that chore.

In Hosea 13:16, the people being killed were Jews (Samaria is part of Israel ...) for violating G-d's commandments.  One of those rather sticky problems with being a Jew ...

And thank-you for demonstrating that you're illiterate.  Now, would you kindly join Vastet in becoming a Southern Baptist?

I thought you had a degree in Jew-ology?

It's hard to comprehend just how evil people can be, but at one time in the planets history, the world was extremely violent and there were cultures which taught their children not just self-defense, but preying on other people.

And you, like your other buddy, have just demonstrated that you're morally and intellectually bankrupt.  Please, trotting Hitler and the NAZIs out is about as ignorant as it gets.

  I'm morally bankrupt. Are you fucking kidding ?    You are the one who advocates genocide.  Not me.

As far as unsavory comparisons goes, I would say those analogies are spot on.  Mass murder looks the same no matter who does the killing. 

Apparently you need to re-read that book you think is a bible.  Jewish slaves were released on the Sabbatical year, non-Jewish slaves were primarily prisoners of war.  In other instances, slavery was a punishment for a crime, or a way for someone to work off debt.

Again, there was no Social Security or Welfare or Student Loan program in place.  Slavery wasn't uncommon and a better strategy for comparing slavery in ancient times is comparing one society's practices against those of another.  Because I assure you -- your ancestors owned slaves, regardless of the skin color or geographical origins of your ancestors.

Yes, I've read the parts.  Still want to be one of the "Chosen" people?

You seem to have a problem with the fact that the human race was not always anywhere near as =civilized= as we are today.  This is always the problem when someone in the modern era is judging actions from thousands of years ago, and Hosea is more than 2,000 years ago.  If you look at many of the more brutal and barbaric peoples, they didn't survive the test of time all that well.

If you look at the empires we've out-lived, I dare say our approach has been far more successful than that of the people around us 3,500 to 2,000 years ago.  Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Greek, Roman -- all those empires are gone.  We're still here.  Gotta be doing something right.

Pol Pot is =modern=.  Pol Pot did what he did without being attacked, without being threatened by his own people, without having any excuse of any sort of self-defensive nature.  He was not trying to rid the country of any form of perversion, corruption, or immorality that was threatening the very survival of the nation, etc., ad nauseum.