Entry 898, on 2008-11-25 at 22:11:04 (Rating 4, Religion)
I just realised that it has been about three weeks since I wrote a blog entry lambasting religion! Politics and economics have been more prominent recently but I have been debating with creationists again (honestly, I never start these debates - its always them) so the topic of religion has again come to the fore.
The other motivation for this entry was an article in our local paper this morning by the religion commentator in his "Honest to God" series. He was asking "who was this Jesus dude, anyway" (I paraphrase slightly). The thing that became quickly apparent was that he was discussing the historical evidence for a character which we really have no right to believe existed at all!
I know I am in a small minority when I deny that Jesus existed (to be more accurate, I don't totally deny the possibility but I think its unlikely that anyone even superficially resembling the figure described in the Bible existed). The vast majority of people just take it for granted that he did. After all, Jesus probably had more influence on society than any other single figure in history. Isn't it ridiculous to even contemplate the possibility that he didn't exist? Well, no.
If you look at how Christianity has influenced the world it was the church that has made all the difference, not the teachings of Jesus (whether he was real or fictional). For example, the Crusades had a huge influence politically and socially. Where exactly did Jesus tell his followers to go around slaughtering anyone they disagreed with? I don't remember reading that bit in the gospels! But the church had a lot to gain from military conquest, so whether Jesus existed or not was irrelevant.
Let's have a look at some of the statements in the newspaper article: "Scholars today use the tools of historical inquiry to tackle those questions. That means they examine the New Testament accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as objectively as they would any other document of the time... Beyond the Bible, what other documents throw light on Jesus as a man..."
He then goes on to describe the gospels and says they all are derived from an earlier document called Q which has never been found. Then he mentions some other ancient documents which really add very little of anything positive to our knowledge of the subject.
My question (which no one has satisfactorily answered) is where are the other documents? The Romans were very efficient record keepers. If Jesus had half the impact he is described as having then I would have thought the events might be mentioned somewhere. Apparently not, because not even his execution was recorded. And what about the supernatural events recorded in the Bible, such as the darkening of the Sun? Apparently no one else noticed.
Not only that but the gospels all disagree with each other, even though they come from the same source! Important details are mentioned in one but not in others. Isn't this just a tiny bit odd? And none of the writers were there when the alleged events happened. Isn't this a bit suspicious? Was what was going on not important enough to mention until many years later when it was repeated by people with no direct experience?
In reality the whole thing is an obvious fake. The gospels are useless. Other historians, such as Josephus, have had their writing interfered with by later Christians (why was that necessary) making the whole thing even less certain. Its a mess. The best conclusion would be that Jesus was a fictional character invented by the church to support the new religion. Its possible the character was based on a real person but the resemblance would be totally superficial and all of the accounts of the events are totally useless.
So why do creationists bother debating me about evolution when their whole religion is based on an obvious myth? I think they have been given a dispensation from any real criticism for many years. People are uncomfortable criticising religion. Well that's fine as long as they sit in a corner and don't cause any trouble, but if they want to reject useful science, try to teach their superstition in schools, and force their own arbitrary morality on the rest of us, then they have got to expect a certain amount of criticism in return.
So there's the challenge to the creationists. The evidence for evolution is overwhelming. The evidence for Jesus is practically zero. What's wrong with them that they believe an obvious myth but reject an obvious fact? I don't know the answer. Maybe they just enjoy being ignorant!
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