@@stealthy1086 Citations need. State your proof.

@@stealthy1086 The key word here is "suggests"

@@stealthy1086 As I said "mythological or NOT" we should not be living our lives based around such madness.

@@rubiesbass9626 What are you talking about? Of course the key word is ‘suggests’! I’d say all of ancient history is suggestive. Historians look at records, then suggest a picture of what happened. It’s never irrefutable! And who are you to suggest who we base our lives around? Everybody is entitled to their beliefs. Worship is an expression of belief and belief is the fruit of thought as is non-belief. It’s a feature of the way we think.

@@stealthy1086 I think the appropriate word here is "Gotcha". Consider yourself called-out and exposed. Delusion is not truth.

An especially hard religion to walk away from. Congrats and good luck.

Great point!! 👍

Long live Middle Earth !!!! ...mellon

The more you know *~

That's called the rabbit hole🐇🕳

What this guy hasn't mentioned, is Christianity was first established in Britain. The first christian church was built in Britain in 37AD. Checkout Edmund Marriage learning from history part 12.

@@dyfnwalmoelmud8362 No. The oldest church is in Jordan dating back to 300AD.

@@lil-al The oldest Christian church was built in Glastonbury in 37 AD by Joseph of Arimathea. The papal councils of the 1400s confirm this fact.

@River Scott LOL! I’m still laughing at your pathetic claims to be a “world-class philosopher” and a “credentialed philosopher and psychologist”. Where are these “credentials” you’ve claimed to have? You can always tell a pathetic, loser beta-male when he tries to impress a bunch of anonymous KZfaq posters with his “credentials”, and how he’s a really important guy, and a “psychologist”, etc. LOL! Better run and tell the manager that I talked mean to you, cowardly Karen.

I'd love to meet him. He taught me a great deal about Jesus; maybe as a former string theorist I could teach him something new about cosmological arguments for god such as finetuning :P

@@haushofer100 Go ahead! Tell us more about how the universe is 'finely tuned' for life, when 99.999% is a lethal, radiation-filled vacuum and most of the matter is suns and black holes were nothing can live. Or tell us about how an all-powerful God of love created a planet where the living things in it survive by killing and eating each other, if they manage not to die from disease, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, killer lightning, famine, extremes of heat and cold, etc. Liars can claim anything, and fools can believe anything on faith, but “The burden of proof regarding the truthfulness of a claim lies with the one who makes the claim; if this burden is not met, then the claim is unfounded.” So let me know when you find some evidence to support absurd claims about an *INVISIBLE MAGIC SKY GENIE* , or that he impregnated Jesus’ mother 2,000 years ago, or that Jesus was a *VIRGIN-BORN DEMIGOD WITH SUPERPOWERS* and that his *ROTTING CORPSE MAGICALLY RETURNED FROM THE DEAD* before levitating bodily into outer space, or evidence for the talking snake, talking donkey, 900-year-old men, etc.

@@mythbuster1483 I think you understood me wrongly here; i don't actually believe these finetuning arguments are valid.

@@haushofer100 Fair enough! My bad.

Why can't an all loving, all knowing creator god just look, see we are all In a muddle and just appear for all of us to set the records straight, give us all a revised rule to live by, and make known gods will and what god wants for us. It just seems so Easy for the most high god to put an end to confusion and set us back on the right path .

I agree with all points made here...

And “God” has done just that. There is no need at all for Religion. Everything a human needs to know, “God” has placed in their hearts. Everything beyond that, i.e. doctrines, festivals, churches, leaders, etc. is just Man doing what Man does best. Vying for gain, for power, for control.

You don't believe in God, that's why you don't hear from Him.

I was evangelized at a young age, and developed a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and once it actually took hold, he told me its totally cool, he believes me, and I can stop bothering with the whole worshipping thing, he says it's flattering but really unnecessary.

_The Gospel According to Carrier_ is also excellent for that, if you haven't seen it.

Carrier has a MASSIVE amount of material on the subject

Sounds like atheism to me

@@deus_vult8111 Yes, he doesn't believe in god claims just like you don't believe in Zeus, Vishnu, Odin, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

He's such a fanatic, and doesn't know the meaning of the word faith.

@@mythbuster1483 You presume a great deal here - many of us accept all gods (though not obviously parodic ones like FSM).

@@topologyrob Regarding "faith", believing liars doesn't get you any extra credit. "Faith-Healing Parents Jailed After Second Child's Death" - Time Magazine, 2014. Where did they get that crazy idea?!! "If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer" (Matt. 21:22), "And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well" (James 5:15). "And these signs will accompany those who believe...they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well" (Mark 16:17-18). "Nothing will be impossible for you" (Matt. 17:20). It's not like the bible contains proven lies by liars, right? Dr. Bart Ehrman, Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina: "But good Christian scholars of the Bible, including the top Protestant and Catholic scholars of America, will tell you that the Bible is FULL OF LIES, even if they refuse to use the term." - Who Wrote The Bible and Why It Matters

The only reason Christians cite Josephus is either 1) they don’t know it’s a proven forgery, or 2) they do know and cite it anyway hoping that others won’t know enough about the topic. Unfortunately for Christian fanatics, the Josephus manuscript was written by anonymous, biased Christian scribes who were notorious for forging fake Jesus references into the texts they hand-copied. It’s not the credibility of ‘Josephus’ that is at question, it’s the credibility of the unknown scribes who copied the text. Dr. Nicholas Peter Legh Allen, professor of theology at North-West University, a world-renowned expert on Josephus, says: “early Christian apologists felt a desperate need to manufacture such fabrications…They were at a loss to find any genuine extra-biblical / scriptural / historical references to convince their religious opponents that their assumed religious founder had even existed” - Christian Forgery in Jewish Antiquities: Josephus Interrupted, 2020. Dr. Michael Martin, professor at Boston University, "Biblical scholars are almost in uniform agreement that this passage is spurious--a Christian interpolation [forgery]--and, consequently, that it cannot be taken seriously as independent confirmation of the historicity of Jesus." - The Case Against Christianity Dr. R. Joseph Hoffman, senior professor in New Testament and Church History at Westminster College, Oxford: “the Testimonium Flavianum (Antiquities 18.3), sometimes cited as a proof of the existence of Jesus but today normally regarded as a Christian forgery.” - THE JESUS TOMB DEBACLE: RIP Dr. Paul Hopper, Distinguished Professor at Carnegie Mellon University: "The most likely explanation is that the entire passage is interpolated [forged], presumably by Christians embarrassed at Josephus’s manifest ignorance of the life and death of Jesus." - A Narrative Anomaly in Josephus: Jewish Antiquities xviii:63 Dr. William O. Walker, Professor Emeritus of Religion, Trinity University: “It is widely agreed, for example, that material was added to the Greek text of Flavius Josephus in order to create a non-Christian testimony to the messiahship and resurrection of Jesus (indeed, some scholars attribute this material to Eusebius, the fourth century Bishop of Caesarea and eminent church historian).” - Interpolations in the Pauline Letters. Dr. Ken Olson, Professor of Religion at Duke University: “The most likely hypothesis is that Eusebius either composed the entire text or rewrote it so thoroughly that it is now impossible to recover a Josephan original.” - A Eusebian Reading of the Testimonium Flavianum

@James Henry Smith The bible contains such great advice for modern life! "And these signs will accompany those who believe...when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all" (Mark 16:17-18). Works every time! "A preacher and another leader...died early yesterday after drinking strychnine at a service" - 2 Drink Strychnine At Service and Die In Display of Faith, New York Times. *WHOOOPS!*

@James Henry Smith Dr. Burton Mack, professor emeritus in early Christianity at the Claremont School of Theology: "The Gospels are FICTIONAL MYTHOLOGIES" - Who Wrote the New Testament? Dr. Alvar Ellegård, Professor at the University of Gothenburg: "the Jesus of the Gospels is essentially a MYTH. The Gospels are largely FICTION." - Theologians as Historians.

@@mythbuster1483 And there are many more credible scholars and historians who will argue that the Gospels are historical biographies. Let's not play the special pleading fallacy game, acting as if these are the only credible people to speak on the Gospels.

@@CRoadwarrior I notice you didn't cite a single one, and just pulled a claim out of your ass---which is the foundation of every Christian claim from the gospel fairy tales. Even so, who is MORE CREDIBLE? 1) a named expert who we can verify wrote something, or 2) an ancient manuscript dated hundreds of years after the supposed events, written by anonymous, biased cult members, which contains proven fiction, forgery and fraud, as well as absurd supernatural claims that are overwhelmingly likely to be false? LOL!

Agreed! The video ended and I was so devastated it was over already!!

@James Henry Smith I'm guessing you're joking ...if not, this is the most unintelligent thing I've ever read

Ya, he’s one a the very few early philosophers that spills the beans on how and why religions are created. I’m actually surprised that he was so candid in the Republic but then again not many people knew how to read in those days.

@Dharma Defender did you not watch the video? 17:25

@Dharma Defender huh? Whatever ..read the Republic

@Dharma Defender sigh, read it again. Specifically book 3 and even more specifically 3.414

@Dharma Defender of course you have and where did I say he was anti-religious? Reading comprehension, look it up.

It's actually creepy Richard who's lying to you

@@topologyrobWhy do you think so?

@@coleabrahams9331 Because he says things that are totally unconvincing to scholars.

​@@topologyrobIt wouldn't be convincing to a field that closets itself from other ancient history and texts and has spent a century or more looking for the real Jesus in the texts while most of their researchers were bound by statements of faith as well as often genuine faith. In other words, give it a few decades. I hear it's already very popular in Europe. Academia has the same shame-policed belief circles as everywhere else. It can take time for things to integrate, especially when most hirers have a prejudice against it. I'm just using my own flawed judgment and you yours, but as I listen to Carrier responding to Ehrman, Litwa, and Davis, I'm more and more convinced by him that they aren't really grappling with his work, just dismissing it lazily and (for some reason) derogatorily. And I've spent much more time listening to them than Carrier until recently. I always took for granted that Mythicism was a little wacky. I shouldn't have. Even if it's wrong, it helps discussions of who the real Jesus could have been by shining light on many little-studied influences on early or proto-Christianity.

@@thoughtful1233 I really think you're reaching here. Carrier hasn't made a dent on the scholarly world, and he personally appears unhinged. His evidence is so far-fetched and arbitrary that no one takes it seriously. Cranks are a dime a dozen.

I’m

Cc

Me too

@Chris Sapp. Not so fast with the following up on what Mr. Carrier has to say. Problem is, Carrier's claims are suspect, since he is no true authority on the New Testament. He even made the mistake of claiming, in a debate against William Lane Craig, that Randel Helms was a "Biblical scholar." Really? And how is an English professor magically transformed into a Koine Greek scholar? LOL. Ad verecundiam fallacy all day. Then, in the same debate, Carrier claimed that the word "Cleopas" in Luke 24:18 means "tell all." Really? Funny how no Greek lexicon I've looked at supports that claim. So for me, Carrier's credibility is shot to hell. He has none. No one should take him seriously, making such elementary mistakes as that.

Indeed. I've actually listened through it three times, trying to digest and evaluate all the information. If you're interested in the topic, it's really engaging.

@James Henry Smith Dr Strange will take care of it.

@James Henry Smith WHAT?! Hahaha! That's some funny shit. Put the fantasy books down and educate yourself. The supernatural doesn't exist. There is no "Satan" and there are no "demon monsters." Wow. Do you also believe in minotaurs, gorgons, and unicorns? I know fantasy is fun, but it's time to adult now.

Or Socrates, who is used by Plato much in the same way? It is like a rhetorical and literary technique.

But myths are not the same as lies even though the truth may not be literal. It is more like poetry. Poetic truths, moral truths, philosophical truths, _may_ still be there ..

I read an article the other day talking about truth in relation to apologetics. It had something along the lines of, "Before, truth was what comported with reality, now-a-days, every has their own truth." I recognize this not as "truth" but as belief. If someone is convinced, that is their "truth". I would say the closest we can get to reality is though the observation of our space using the senses and tool we have at our disposal and to share what we observe with others to see if it matches up with as many other observations as possible. This is why education is needed in order to get people who are unfamiliar up to speed. I feel this relates to the idea of "truth" in the article is closer to the idea of common sense or intuition; it doesn't haven't to be right, it just has to feel right to the individual. The problem is when it seeks to stop deeper exploration by the self or from others. If we presume we know "enough", we are doing ourselves a disservice and increase our chances of life becoming mundane (a side effect of settling). Another factor that may have played a role is "everyone" (people in groups you attend or talk to) openly (upfront and willing to share at any given moment) sharing similar (seemingly) opinions.

@@BornOnThursday Richard Carrier: "all matters of fact can only ever be known to a probability."

@Language lover yes, the book is really good. Also because Carrier puts much emphasis on methodology. I also like his advocation for Bayesian inference, because it makes clear how your assumptions affect your final hypothesis. What I'd like to see more (in hus future work?) is what kind of methodology could dustinguish between apophenia and true patterns. I recommended the book OTHOJ already to quite some people, as somebody who thought before reading Carriers work that mythicism was mainly bogus.

Nice!

First of all how many obvious charlatans and conmen swim up to the top of Christian churches.

Please don't compare Professor Ehrman with this charlatan. For more info read "Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth" by Bart Ehrman.

@@mystique-1337 I wasn't comparing him to Professor Erhman. I was merely saying that the same things they are covering in this interview are things that professor Erhman covers. I personally don't agree with him that Jesus was not an actual person. I agree with professor Erhman's conclusions.

@@mystique-1337 Why should Ehrman’s opinion on the matter even be considered? He isn’t qualified to determine historicity, his PhD is in theology, not history.

@@wantanamera Because he is simply stating what the academical consensus says. Furthermore in a non-fundamentalist christian seminary or university they do biblical studies with secular methods (source criticism, form criticism, redaction criticism, tradition criticism, canonical criticism, textual criticism). If you are interested in scholars specialized in the historical jesus see J.P. Meier, G. Theissen, Dale C. Allison, E. P. Sanders, G. Lüdemann (atheist), D. Flusser (jew), P. Fredriksen (jew), J. D. Crossan, M. Borg.

Bad example. Saint Nicholas of Myra was potentially also a real person, about whom various stories and myths grew up.

Ideals aren't a real thing but they can impact the world.

Ingvar Ambjørnsen also continues: "Personally, I thrive much better with the dirty and slightly paranoid Christ, than with the variant that used to be in the old State Church. It suits him to be rejected in the modern materialist adventure. For me, the biggest mystery eventually became, next to the drama at Calvary, how this strange man found his way into the pomp and splendor of the pope's palaces, and around the clammy coffee tables in our native Sørlandet [Southern Norway]. It is not true what Archbishop Robert Zollitsch says that Jesus would have been friends with everyone on Facebook, if he had only been so lucky to live today. In any case, it is not one hundred percent certain." From: www.boktips.no/dokumentar-og-samfunn/hva-er-det-med-jesus/

@@sarahharris2729 That's an interesting theory.

The gospels were written very late. The Jesus that Paul is talking about doesn't have anything in common with the Jesus of the gospels.

If you read each Gospel individually and in probable chronological order: Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. You'll see that Jesus is deified a little more in each work as time went on and early Christianity evolved.

There’s not one portrait of Jesus. There are 5 popular ones presented in the modern Protestant canon and dozens more in later so called “gnostic” gospels. I do agree that the lunatic peasant version is the most likely core of any historical Jesus.

It's shrinking again. Thank goodness.

Exactly!

Are you a Gnostic Christian by any chance?

@@remedy9648 Yes.

@Dharma Defender I don't believe in the idea of any 'original Christians'. Christians were fractured from day one. But I do think that the Gnostic groupings often are forgotten in discussions like these - which I think make them more poor. I like your perspective of Jesus as a 'Hindu Guru'. Even though I don't agree I find it to be a very rich and giving perspective. I have a lot of admiration of Hinduism.

@Dharma Defender I can totally relate to this way of thinking - and have a lot of admiration for this view. I've always thought of Gnosticism as a more clean "eastern" version of Christianity. I think you and I would properly agree with each other most of the way as I would have no problem describing myself as a Platonist either.

@@SpiderDiscord awesome! It’s been difficult for me to find anyone who is Gnostic since I first started studying it a few decades ago. I’m wondering if you have any reading you’d be kind enough to recommend ? It’s been a while since I dove in. Thanks in advance💜