(I heavily edit this, as a theist launched alot of junk my way, and I chose to ignore most of it, as I've already dealt with identical arguments)

Interesting thread, both the theist and the atheist are wrong.

A superficial reading of “Jesus’” ramblings only serves to make atheists look ignorant, I recommend leaving this stuff up to more dedicated bible readers. It does not serve the cause of reason to be as sloppy as theists are, it’s not like the facts don’t support you, so you have no excuse.

As for the theist, stop making unsubstantiates claims, like the historical truth of the gospels or the power of prayer, all you have to back that up is xtian propaganda, that will fail to impress anyone here. You may think you have facts and science on your side, but that’s due to a lack of critical thinking on your part, take a harder look at the so called evidence for your claims, instead of taking it all for granted. It would save us having to debunk it all for the thousandth time.

As for Jesus being an idiot, the writers of the gospels certainly were, though not for what they made Jesus say but the mistakes they made, and clues they left as to the fraudulent nature of there claims. “ Jesus’ ” teachings are no better or worse then any mediocre moralists of that era, badly written, and with a dangerously irresponsible emphasis on blind faith over ethics and thought, nothing new.

Also allot of the passages that make Jesus out to be a liar, a hypocrite or inconsistent and contradictory are actually due to the fact that the gospel writers didn’t consult each other on what they made Jesus say. This resulted in Jesus saying not to call people fools, then doing so himself etc. There are different Jesus’, Matthew and Luke for example have very different attitudes and beliefs and the Jesus’ they invent reflect this. Once you see this, such inconsistencies are understandable, if theists were intellectually honest they could simply deal with most biblical “contradictions” by acknowledging they we have different views of various authors. They just make life harder for themselves with all this “harmonising” nonsense.

Also changing polices and attitudes in the churches would lead to new gospels making Jesus reflect such changes (as the main role of the later “historical” Jesus was mostly to provide legitimate precedent for whatever liturgy, ceremonies and rules they developed). Such as when he bans divorce, then allow it. Such “contradictions” are actually evidence of the evolution of policy, (in this case the laxing of it) and serve as valuable clues in our understanding of xtianity’s early days.

Theists see a problem, to be explained away. Certain atheists see errors to be used as fodder. Whereas a more professional scholar and truth seeker sees evidence that helps us, providing opportunities for expanding our knowledge. That the picture objective research creates contradicts xtian dogma is nothing to crow about, but simply except, as facts overtake belief, as they always do. That theists have such trouble with this, and resort to denials and lies, does not mean we have to be as immature. Truth should be are primary concern not scoring points. (Dr. Price being a perfect example) We’ll destroy theism enough by simply being thorough, accurate and honest, we don’t need to go out of our way to do any damage to it.

And when we inevitably win, as we have in most of the west, (America being a sad exception for the moment, were poor education gives superstition, cons and xtianity more power to consolidate their power) it will be due to us being right, not better debaters, or more forceful proselytisers. We will have deserved victory, for reflecting reality, and for serving truth, not our agendas.

Atheist ideologues are not as bad as theistic ones, (being at least ultimately right) but you won’t make any allies being as partisan and belligerent as they are made to be.

Our cause should first an foremost be the truth, not atheism, humanism, freethought, or making theists look like the credulous fools they are. Unlike with disputes between spouses, politician, nations and art critics, we are more than just a side in an ideolgoial war, we happen to be right, but only so long as we remain diligent and objective. They cannot be (without de-converting), and it’s easy to be as lazy as they are, but we have to set an example, as the one they set is the worst imaginable.


By the way, I’m an exegete, so any gospel quotes you think serve your point, present them and I’ll gladly tell you whether it does, and provide a better explanation than just Jesus being dumb. It will still annoy the theists, but in a better way. (It will also take the pressure of Dr. Price).

Metacrock

bottom line, he was a rabbi in a Jewish world. The extent to which he sounds stupid or smart can only be judged if you under Rabbinical lit of the second temple.

who is Dr. Price? What makes you an exegete? If so you should know about textual criticism and you should know better than to just blurt out that any kind of evidence is propaganda as though Helmutt Koster is just Jerry Fallwell.

ME

Cheapsuprise, I disagree with your NT interpretations.

This just shows you have no interest in genuine study. And I never mentioned Helmutt Koster.

Another quick example.

I will be generous and assume this poster was being facetious. The point here, and the theist was actually correct in his response, is that the healings of Jesus only work if the recipient had faith that it would work. In one particular case a woman was healed by touching his robe, he didn't actually have to consciously use his powers at all, it responded to someone else's faith. In other words God automatically grants blessings upon those with faith, rather than having to deliberately work miracles arbitrarily.

This is a typical scam employed by the faith healers today, those who don't believe in them see no miracle, those already believe they can perform miracles, will see them perform miracles. To some of this proves that faith has a quantitative value, to others it's simply a transparent scam. Get people to believe in something beforehand, and then you can get away with providing shoddy proof. The point of these passages is to legitimise blind faith, nothing else.

Raijo, your posts are excellent, you understand the importance of honesty, and correcting those on our side for the sake of truth.

Again in America this is not surprising given the fact that Christianity has totally engulfed in this nation. However in England the abolitionist movement was led by freethinkers including the Darwin's. Many feminists today are secular, I wonder why?

Chimp

UietBhor (Me), If you're going to refute a point using my quote, please have the courtesy to present something a little more than an interpretation - even though I agree with your conclusion totally. Otherwise we're back to theology where anything goes.

Where in the text of Mark does it say faith had anything remotely to do with it? It's easy to square any equation if you can tamper with the text arbitrarily, but we usually call that the Fallacy of Insertion around here. We use the evidence as it stands, we cite it from other sources, or compile it into statistics, but the minute we doctor it to suit our whim, the entire process is corrupted. See the problem? Any idiot can interpret this - that's why we have a billion denominations out there. If it's a hypothesis - fine, no problem. But if I'm a moron for not taking it on face value, I want the raw data.

There isn't even a hint that faith had anything to do with it, or that it had positive qualities. Unlike the self-healing woman in Mk 5:35, we aren't told that faith was the secret ingredient. The man is told to stay indoors and shut up about it, so there doesn't appear to be an actual doctrine here at all, other than what you added yourself. Ergo, I find it hard to accept your analogy.

And aren't there counter-cases against this interpretation? I didn't see Jesus having problems manifesting himself to his followers just because Doubting Thomas was a skeptic until he'd poked his finger in the fleshwound. (I do recall Christians bragging about Jesus proving himself to cynics and skeptics on numerous occassions, but I'll be damned if I could remember any off the cuff)

Does Mark actually say anywhere that faith can have a positive or negative impact on miracles? After all, that woman healed herself by triggering his mojo - she didn't impact an actual miracle working.

And no, I wasn't being facetious. I was drawing my interlocutor's logic and premises to their conclusion under the assumption that he'd be a Protestant holding that Jesus is an almighty god, and hence stating that lack of faith would impact his hoodoo would be absurd.

Welcome to the board, by the by. I love your writings so far!

Me

Chimp, good response, my position regarding the healing of the old man is based on overall context, and the theology of the writer. (There are many examples where faith is accrediting with the miracle, a metaphor for the faith of the followers at that time.)

Chimp

UietBhor, Thank you for your response, man.

Okay, now I'm hooked. Can we get you to recommend some scholarly works on this? Do you have a top 5 or 10 favorite books to kill a slow weekend? It doesn't have to be specifically for the layperson.

ME

Chimp

Uietbhor (am I seeing Irish or is it past my bedtime?),
You're a friend of Richard's? Man, call me up when you guys go barhopping, hehehe!

Thanks for the links - they were all new to me, except Remsburg. I look forward to dive into them tomorrow.

I know Prometheus and their catalog - I have gone through most of Price's stuff, but I noticed they had many new ones. Dammit, I think you've rekindled my love for this stuff. I was trying to kick this for good...

I'm especially interested in works that put the Gospels in a historical context, linguistically, culturally, achaeologically, anthropologically, mythologically - the works. But those links of yours will do for now.

Thanks, I really appreciate that - as well as your expoundings in your earlier post. Peeling off these layers is really fascinating to me.

I got a lot of concepts that are still vague in my mind or puzzles that I can't quite square yet because I don't see the whole picture, and I know my ignorance is the primary source of this. My only real tools are a working knowledge of logic, and my curiosity at this point.

That's why I really appreciate your openness, and willingness to explore instead of just asserting things which can be a read drag.

Thanks again, man. It's been most informative.

ME

Does anybody mind if I just ignore Metacrock?

Have had my fill of arguing with these people, and I'm not in the mood to make an example of him today. It's very rarely worth the effort, they just ignore whatever you post and go bother another form. Besides I've refuted all his points so many times. (Unless someone wants me to refute a specific point).

Chimp, the best advice I can give you is to simply to study 1st century Judea and the Greco-Roman world. Particularly mystery cults and classical philosophy. The historical context is what demonstrates the gospels to be fraudulent. Once you have ruled out their validity you can then move onto reconstructing what Jesus actually is. That is more complicated, as you need a strong understanding of cynic, stoic, platonic and Epicureans philosophy. It is particularly important to understand that the God that Christians worship was invented by Plato, interestingly the guy who came up with "The Noble Lie". Christian theology derives from an attempt to intertwine Greek rationalism with Jewish Scriptures. The result is essentially platonic idealism with Jewish mythology superficially tacked on. This is why Christian theology does not seem to match that of the old Testament, because essentially it is that of Aristotle, not Moses.

I do this for non-theists really, I's important not to let theist's false claims and misrepresentations stand. Not to annoy them, but safeguard people's minds from miss-education.

He's an example of random exegesis. (You can't always get into the head of the writer with every passage, so it does tend to develop into more of a general essay later on).

Matthew

9:1 And he entered into a ship, and passed over, and came into his own city.

Why is it that there is so much ship action in the gospels? Especially considering that one may spend their entire life in Judea and never get on a single boat. It all Mark's fault, like most Greek writers he unconsciously or consciously "borrowed" ideas from Homer, who used ships to get Odysseus from place to place, as a narrative device. This habit was then used by the gospel writers. Fine for a Mediterranean story, not for Judea.

9:2 And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.

Yet another example of prioritising faith. Faith = Absolution. All these Theists attempts to rationalise it, natural sinful state etc, is just window dressing, you have it here in black and white. Whatever theology you use to defend this belief system, it doesn't change the fact that this a mind control cult using faith in place of facts, and promised the solution for problem that they themselves invented. A horrendous cycle. There's also the idea that sin causes disease. This despicable and barbaric attitude continues in the Christian attitude towards AIDS. Blaming the sufferers for their suffering, that's Christian compassion for you.

9:3 And, behold, certain of the scribes said within themselves, This man blasphemeth.

It is not blasphemy to say someone's sins have been forgiven, if one is a spokesman for God. That is what Jesus is claiming, it is not blasphemy to claim to be a prophet, is only blasphemy to claim it and be wrong, abusing the status. It is begging the question to assume this straight off and declare blasphemy. Pharisees were not that stupid, they understood logic, Christians do not. They would have tested his claims, the writer clearly have no understanding of pharisaic methodology. He is using this line as a narrative device to set the scene for the later events. An inevitable invention given the newly developed idea to blaim the Jews for Jesus's death. A post 2nd century Bar Kochba development, an attempt to explain why they lost their country.

9:4 And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts?

In this scene we see the Jews been condemned as inherently evil from the very beginning. It is assumed that they would automatically react to Jesus in an evil manner, but no explanation for this is a forgiven. Demonising Jews is the first step to replacing them as the new Israel. Pharisees in particular were targeted because they were opposed to the Hellenising of their religion, and Christianity being essentially a Greek cult would have naturally come under their scorn early on. This is essentially tit-for-tat. Revenge for the early days, taking advantage of their newly powerless state.

9:5 For whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk?

This is the kind of thing they objected to, people claiming to be Godly, simply on the basis of miracles. Despite the fact that it was well understood by Jews of that time that miracles could either be fraudulent or sent by rival gods/demons. (for e.g. Simon Magus) It is blind faith to simply assume that everyone coming along performing such tricks is either God incarnet (as in this case), or sent by God in general. It is perfectly reasonable to demand more proof than merely miracles. Miracles were even done by bad guys in the old Testament. Also there were a great many "magicians" using techniques stolen from Egyptian priests, and using these tricks to fool masses into worshipping them, and giving them money. Lucian reports many such instances, as does the Talmud. One group Lucian saw being fooled by such a charlatan was a group called the "Christians".

How are these Pharisees supposed to know that he is the real deal? Jesus seems to expect them to fall flat on their faces and worship him straightaway. Given the realities of the time, this is asking too much of any reasonable person. As usual Jesus gets very angry when people don't blindly follow him all the time.

9:8 But when the multitudes saw it, they marvelled, and glorified God, which had given such power unto men.

This passage could be interpreted two ways, does it mean power to commit miracles, or power to forgive sins? If the latter then this shows a general understanding that such things are possible, and occur in with more than one person. It did not strike them as blasphemous, and even if the Pharisees were wrong, why does this makes them evil? Is it evil to doubt? Evil to jump to conclusions, even those based on considerable prior experience? Again blind faith is the only virtue here.

9:9 And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him.

Most of the disciples are faceless characters, introduced purely in order to bring the number of followers to 12, this number having mystical importance. Peter only gets more as he was used in tug of war between several churches, one making him out to be of immense significance, "the rock" and others making him look stupid, falling in the water, or denying Christ. The rest, such as doubting Tom and Judas Iscariot are purely narrative devices. Hence their only having one function.

9:10 And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. 9:11 And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners? 9:12 But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.

I thought of these Pharisees were evil? Surely they need a physician too? As Jesus condemned them without hope? Has he forgotten his previous condemnation? Has he only come to save normal people, and not those higher up on the social lagger? Is he some sort of Maoist, persecuting teachers and aristocrats on behalf of the people? Is this reverse elitist snobbery? Am I reading too much into this? Who then are the whole? I thought we were all sinners? Don't we all need Jesus?
This passage is this is so badly thought out that it creates a load of unanswerable questions. It may seem like Jesus is simply coming to save those most in need, but this phrase seems to imply that there are those that don't, contradicting Christian theology. There is also the fact that the Jews are supposed to be abandoned, yet these sinners are Jews.

This creates a rather uneven tension in the stories, given that Jesus by the time the stories written is seen to have totally abandoned Jews and gone completely to the Gentile. Yet he exists in a mostly Jewish area, this led to the necessity of introducing token Gentiles, which serve as true believers and converts, allowing Jesus to largely abandoned everyone else around him and vice versa. So you get these bizarre scenes where Gentiles come out of nowhere and seem to have a firmer understanding of who and what Jesus is than his own disciples.

This reflects the fact that Gentiles were fooled by this false Messiah, and Jew who had spent their entire lives waiting for him didn't buy it.. They understood this concept, as they had invented it. It is easier to fool people least qualified to discern the truth. Even if you look purely at this story, it still strikes one as odd a woman Gentile, or a Roman general who know nothing of the Jewish God, or the Messiah, managing to impress Jesus with their faith, whereas those that dedicated themselves to the Torah are demonised from the start. In very much the same way that creationists love a follower who has no knowledge of science, and the same time have to demonise real scientists.

Such contradictions abound in the Gospels, such as Palm Sunday when he has been welcomed by every Jew in the city, and the next moment they are all calling for his blood, literally. This is what comes of condemning a whole people to hell, while at the same time having the saviour of humanity move exclusively in their midst. It would save them a lot of bother if they simply stuck Jesus in Greece. Ultimately this supposedly Jewish story, with the Jewish saviour, and Jewish disciples, in Jewish country, was actually 100% anti Jewish. Many Christians attempted to deny the anti-Semitism in the new Testament, by pointing out that so many of the characters are Jewish, however this is no more proof than for a Nazi propaganda film full of Jewish people.

A lot of people, including Jewish people fail to notice that Christianity is built on succession doctrine, that God has abandoned Jews because they killed Jesus, or never intended to save them in the first place. (God breaks his promise?) If so the Pharisees were destined to not believe him, and the Jewish crowds were destined to be manipulated by Pharisees into demanding his death, resulting in the condemnation of all Israel. Resulting in the destruction of the Jewish temple, and God no longer hearing their prayers. The logic of this follows the fact that they could no longer sacrifice animals after the failed rebellions and the destruction of the second temple. It was seen by Gentiles that they can therefore no longer be absolved of sin. However this is an ignorant view of Judaism, as they have other ways of absolving themselves, and anyway sacrifice was only for unintentional sins, disease, periods, ect.

It all started when the early Christians wanted to worship the Jewish God, without maintaining the kosher laws. So Paul claiming that Jesus had freed them from the laws by making them "dead in Christ", and later Acts would have Peter received a vision and being commanded by God to eat unclean animals. This is simply a way of attracting Gentiles, as they didn't want vigorous lifestyle changes. When the temple was destroyed it only confirmed the Christian idea that kosher was done with, it also provided a opportunity to cuts ties to the Jews once and for all, by blaming the Jews for their saviour's death, who previously had been killed by demons. This was a bit overkill, considering all they were after was some pork. I Suppose it prevented their followers from fraternising with Jews, who's greater understanding of the Old Testament meant they could point out the flaws in Matthew's abuse of it.

todangst

Me

todangst, Bingo. This is the problem with the whole argumentum ad popularum Christians use on this. For a start many of these historians are Christians, and not likely to go against their beliefs, also many are pressured by their culture, particularly in America, to not take the mythicist position. Look what happened to the fellows of the Jesus seminar. Also many simply have not looked into this issue, and have taken historicity for granted. Many scholars can be amazingly sloppy on this issue, when dealing with the fraudulent quotes in Josephus, Tacitus and Pliny. Also many have built a reputation on books which are presumed his existence, and I do not want to be made to contradict themselves. The amount of historians who have seriously looked into this issue, and objectively studied the facts is very small, the exact number of mythicists in fact. Show me a historicist and I'll show you a person who has a vested interest in Jesus's historicity, or has not thoroughly and objectively analysed the facts. Even many historians studying the 1st century assume his existence, as they think they have no reason to doubt it, being ignorant of the data. Dr Price himself is very disappointed with this, but understands the reasons for it. This does not change the fact that mythicsts have more facts to back up our position than any other, and very importantly far greater explanatory power. No proper scholar has managed to refute either Doherty's or Dr Price is work, so far it's juat a bunch of fallacious nonsense in Tektonix.org.

The crucial point here is that it is perfectly acceptable to accept the majority opinion on matters such as Evolution, because their positions are based on a mountain of empirical data. However when we can clearly see that the majority opinion in case of Jesus's historicity is not based on any historical data, then it serves no purpose to point out their position. Nor does it help to list paltry Christian testaments, that basically amount to either Chinese whispers or outright fraud. Anecdotal evidence is worthless.

As to Metacrock, I don't like ignoring thiests, I just don't like having to repeat myself. Theists have such a limited number of arguments that I've probably refuted all of them at one point or another.

Back to the original tropic, (i.e. Why doesn't Jesus sound smart?)

When studying the "teachings" of Jesus one needs to bear in mind that they invariably fall into three distinct categories.

Firstly they could be (borrowed) teachings designed to make Jesus look admirable, these are invariably taken from rabbinical sources (Rabbi Hillel for example) the old Testament, (“love thy neighbour” from Leviticus) and most often from Cynic schools via the “Q” source. These are inarguably good teachings, but Christianity does not deserve the credit for them. They’re the passages most cherry picked by liberal and moderate Christians in order to make the new Testament look better than it is. I do not often deal with these passages, except to demonstrate why the originals are often superior.

The second type are those passages used to support the theology of the writer. Some of these are quite excessive, his rantings on hell for example, as they support doctrines now only favoured by fundamentalists. These are quite obvious, and even Christians can see them for what they are.

The third type of teaching are designed to legitimise current church policy, these invariably change as the policies change, for example when they relaxed their divorce laws later gospels have Jesus and allow divorce, where the previous one have him completely prohibit it. This explains a great many of the contradictions in his teachings, and provide valuable data on changing church policy from the early to middle second sentries, “Jesus” serves as a section of “geological layers” for the archaeologist of Christian history.

Many of these teachings are not so self-evidently good and are either given a positive spin by moderates or are ignored. Showing their alteria motive is a good way of countering the Christian spin. “Paul’s” teachings are often the same. Particularly in the later epistles which are really pseudepigraphical and entirely written, (similar to the letters of Ignatius), by ideologues with a distinct agenda, anti-women, anti-Gnostic etc.

Many of these original teachings are also quite worrying, they legitimise policy by providing a “divine precident” but they are invariably the darker side of Christianity, it's bias or bigotres, its policies of cultic manipulations. (Demanding followers hate their family, so that they can be more easily brainwashed, is a common cult tactic even today, this is not so much foolish as dangerous and immoral) These were created by the Christian scribes based on subjective beliefs, and self-serving interests. They are invariably not as wise or decent as those taken from rabbinical or philosophical sources. However in order to make them look as respectable as those arguments and teachings used by rabbis and Greek thinkers they employ superficial details such as seeming pharisaic legal logic, (used alot by Paul) or superficial rationalisations, made to resemble the reasoning of the cynics.

You can tell the difference in that they are far poorer quality and have many logical flaws. A classic example in the Pauline epistles when “Paul” condemns homosexuals for going against their nature, by being attracted to each other, this condemnation contradicts itself let alone the realities of nature. This is clearly just the rantings of the bigot attempting to use the cynic style moral reasoning (natural = good, unnatural = bad) but ends up looking a complete fool because even the ancient Greeks recognised homosexuality as natural, let alone scientists today.

Whether he genuinely looked to nature for moral guidance, or just wanted to sound like he’d given it some thought, his condemnation of long-haired men on the grounds that it was unnatural, (mistaking a cultural trend for an inherent condition), shows that if he was observing nature he was doing so very superficially. I suspect he was just using nature to back up his argument. The cynics never made such superficial observations, or such faulty reasoning. This is most likely later work not written by Paul, but by those who wrote the gospels, as Jesus is also seen to make superficial pseudo-cynic moral reasoning. Only this time he backs it up by claiming that God dictates this principle. This bizarre combination of the typical use of God to support policy, and unusual tendency to mimic contemporary intellectuals is what creates such a confused mess and makes Jesus look foolish.

He’s an example. Its makes Jesus look stupid, but serves a very specific purpose.


Matthew

6:26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?


Very Cynic like, but also flawed. For a start birds are not taken care of by god or anybody else. They have terrible energy demands that calls them to require almost all their waking hours to hunting and searching for food. (Look at humming birds) Most chicks starve to death, an apt demonstration of the cruelties of nature, it shouldn't take a Darwinian to be able to see this. This is a childish and naive view of the animal world, and a very flawed analogy.

6:28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

This is also a bad analogy, flowers are not conscious, they cannot suffer fatigue, and the do not "work" as humans do. And yet they require energy, moisture, and can suffer and die for lack of them. There "raiment" serves a specific function, not for aesthetic purposes but for survival. Looking to nature for moral guidance only goes so far, because most species lack common features with ours. There are many ways you can make society worse by following nature, such as creating a slavish hive-mind like ants or termites. Or killing your stepchildren like lions do, so that your genes are passed on and not your predecessor’s.


The question is what is Jesus arguing for? Does he want us to all blindly and helplessly depend on God? There certainly are passages in the old and new Testaments that promotes this mentality, such as when Elijah encourages a mother to give up all her food, even though it means she and her child will starve to death. Of course in the story God rewards her blind obedience (ala Abraham), and the message here is to handover absolutely everything to the church, priests, “holy” men, (or to be charitable “charity”).

The problem with this reckless attitude (apart from the obvious one) is that it is open to abuse, many so-called “faith healers” regularly manage to exploit the credulous and infirm, not just draining them of their savings but absolutely everything they have, leaving them destitute and even unable to take care of their children. They have the Biblical presidents to back up their demands for everything these victims have, so it cannot be argued that they are being untrue to Christianity. Indeed it does not end there, this legacy of naive, idealistic or more often manipulative and cynical demands has led not only to suffering bestowed by the church, but also the Communist regimes.

A lot of Jesus's teachings seem subtley socialist, egalitarian, but they are really the precursors to an outright communist system. When first two gospels were written in the early to mid second century the churches were already using a economic system where all the members handed over 100 percent of their possessions and money. This allowed the poorer members with practically nothing to give, to gain from the average increase caused by the richer members doing the same. This is partially the reason why Christianity was successful in the first three centuries, ironic that the true successors to these early Christians, the right, are vehemently anti-Communist. The next two gospels continue to use Jesus to legitimise these policies. Luke in particular, apart from being an attempt to make the gospel story seem more historical, included stories that fill the gap between the end of the gospel story and the beginning of the Christian Church the readers would have known. In short, the gospel writers were using fake (hence not smart) Cynic arguments to defend current Communist policies, and giving them to a fictional founder, inventing their own Lenin. Historical revisionism, using the pen instead of the airbrush.

The book of Acts shows Jesus’s teachings pushed to their logical conclusion as far as church organisation was concerned, with out right abolition of all private property. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” etc. (Though Acts is thoroughly unhistorical, and in all probability there was no such Apostolic church, it nonetheless indicates an attempt to cement second century church policies by having the apostles implement them on top of Jesus implying them). It gets positively Maoist when followers are killed for not obeying the Party, sorry, Apostles. Marx may have been an atheist, but he admired the Apostolic church, and medieval Christian Europe. The problem with both Christianity and Communism is that they are so open to abuse. The Communist ideal expressed my “Jesus”, the book of Acts, and Karl Marx was naive to think it wouldn't create tyranny. It was foolish to lack democratic safeguards, a blunder which has cost humanity dearly. Not only the Communist atrocities but all those committed by Christianity.

Anyway this is the end result of these particular type of Jesus's teachings. The main points to remember here is that they were not spoken by a first century teacher, but written by second century scribes who had to legitimise policies really developed incrementally through a evolution much like that of many other cults and religions. Claiming a special origin for its practices and ceremonies is precisely what all other philosophies and cultures do, from the Confucius school to Hebrew priests. Once you understand this the gospels make a lot more sense. Read through Jesus' “dumb” teachings again, try to see all the layers.

(I respond to BobSpence1)

I fully acknowledge there are wise teachings the NT, but all stolen from other sources, and I can tell when something isn’t wise by understanding what the writer meant. When a mistake is made, there is no point trying to interpret it away. Also my ability to see depth and wisdom, in Epicurean, stoic, Buddhist teachings, is what makes Jesus look so stupid, I don’t fail to see wisdom, I see what it is. Teachings are not mysteries; they can be measured, held up to facts and compared to other teachings. Attempts to “naturalise” or spin his teachings are intellectually dishonest, true understanding is seeing objective truth, flaws and all, not perpetually granting the benefit of the doubt, and assuming there is wisdom beyond the plain reading and its limits.

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