The Japanese are trying their very best to understand Christmas... ;D # https://9gag.com/gag/aeeLK0j (Sorry, I know it's horrible, but made me laugh a lot, hahahaha!!!)

On Sun, Dec 24, 2017 at 3:30 PM, juan <juan.g71@gmail.com> wrote:

fuck the joos

Sorry for disappointing you so much, my dear Juan. It would be a gorgeous thing to do today, but Rayzer, my Jewish ex-boyfriend, and the most of my Jewish male single friends are pretty far from me, living in the USA. So I think it would be much easier to me choosing between fucking an Atheist or fucking a Catholic. Some special preference, dear? hahaha!!! ;D God, I swear I do still not understand why the heck you hate so much the Jewish people, Juan! It's their religion, their faith, and should be respected as any other, my dear. You would like to study some of the Jewish principles, Juan. They remember me a lot some of the most important Japanese beliefs: - Protect your people, your family, your honor. Respect the wiseness of the older ones and teach the younger ones how to be good persons, trying to keep pure their hearts and souls. Study all the days of your life, never stop studying. Respect and honor your parents and your family's traditions. Respect your wife/husband and your eventual sons and daughters. They will be your blood and flesh and you will live in their lives, even when your bones become dust and your name becomes a pretty far memory. Don't be lazy or selfish. Be grateful for being alive and keep surviving. Always keep surviving to preserve your proud people's History alive, even after wars, holocausts, and nuclear bombs, my dear. And, of course, always make jokes... Laughing makes the tears less bitter... ;)

On Sun, Dec 24, 2017 at 7:29 PM, juan <juan.g71@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, 24 Dec 2017 18:33:35 -0200 Cecilia Tanaka <cecilia.tanaka@gmail.com> wrote:

...

God, I swear I do still not understand why the heck you hate so much the Jewish people, Juan! It's their religion, their faith, and should be respected as any other, my dear.

well my position is pretty rational. What's really "hard to understnad", because it's actually absurd, is the idea that theocratic garbage deserve any respect at all. It does not.

Technically, I am an Atheist, Juan. I've lost my faith in some point of my life and I know there will not be a return, but I still pray all the days to a God that I don't know if exists or not, asking to protect this world and all the people, in special my loved ones. I don't do it for simple habit or hypocrisy, but because I really would like to believe that there is something, someone much bigger than us, than my dreams, than the whole universe, watching for us with some tenderness, with compassion and love... :'( We never meet each other, but we both are made of atoms. The atoms of the sunflower that I am touching now could contain some old atoms of your skin. Or Tesla's, maybe. Who knows? Maybe God exists only in the Science, when Chemistry makes its magic, being used to create and recreate biological and chemical structures. In any case, almost all the religions deserve my respect, after analyzing some details. Well, until a few years ago, a North-American State had a very old law permitting to shoot in Mormons. When I read it, I became horrified with the religious discrimination, but a friend asked me to read about the Mormons' beliefs before giving any opinion... Well, I still considered the law pretty unfair, but I simply could not accept all those stupid stories as a formal religion. But also all the other religions that I studied have very contradictory and surreal facts and acts, so I try to respect all of them, trying to get what they have of good to offer, to teach me, and rejecting what doesn't seem logical for me. This year, I helped two different religions/churches with the donations of Christmas gifts for poor children in orphanages and for old people left alone for their own families in retirement homes. The past and the future of my country. Two different churches, but I don't follow any religion. I just wanted a bit fairer world, less sad, less miserable, at least for one single day of my life, of their lives... I am *not* a good example of the Japanese culture and I would *never* be pretentious enough to affirm something different, Juan. I know I will always be considered a "gaijin" in the land of my ancestors, even moving to there and presenting all my Japanese documentation. My blood is Japanese, but not my way of thinking, living, moving, talking, feeling, or making things, and being very sincere, I do *not* care about it. I am exactly who I could be and I am following my own way, still trying to be who I should be. Well, after all the storms, the sea and the music always heal the pain... I can't send the sea's beauty, its amazing smell and the wind in a message, but I will share with you a very sweet berceuse, which was sent me today by one of my dearest, most loved friends. He is one of the few persons in the whole world able to identify all my texts patterns and feelings, even when I am pretending to be happy with the holidays. I've lost a lovely friend this morning, have spent a great part of this Christmas' Eve crying and listened to this song several times because it was perfect to say goodbye to my deceased friend... This lovely tenor has a so soft and sweet voice, so cozy as a snuggle... ========= "Schlafe, mein Prinzchen, schlaf ein" - Rita Streich https://youtu.be/oXPBdghczMQ Schlafe, mein Prinzchen, schlaf ein, Schäfchen ruh'n und Vögelein, Garten und Wiese verstummt, auch nicht ein Bienchen mehr summt, Luna mit silbernem Schein gucket zum Fenster herein, schlafe bei silbernem Schein, schlafe, mein Prinzchen, schlaf ein, schlaf ein, schlaf ein! Auch in dem Schlosse schon liegt alles in Schlummer gewiegt, reget kein Mäuschen sich mehr, Keller und Küche sind leer, nur in der Zofe Gemach tönet ein schmachtendes Ach! Was für ein Ach mag das sein? Schlafe, mein Prinzchen, schlaf ein, schlaf ein, schlaf ein! Wer ist beglückter als du? Nichts als Vergnügen und Ruh'! Spielwerk und Zucker vollauf und noch Karossen im Lauf, Alles besorgt und bereit, dass nur mein Prinzchen nicht schreit. Was wird da künftig erst sein? Schlafe, mein Prinzchen, schlaf' ein, schlaf ein, schlaf ein! # English Version Sleep, my little prince, sleep, The sheep and the birdies rest, The garden and the meadow are quiet, Not even a little bee buzzes anymore. Luna, with a silverly glow Looks in through the window, Sleep by the silvery glow, Sleep, my little prince, sleep, Sleep, sleep! By now, all are in bed in the castle, All lulled into a slumber, No more mice stir, The basement and kitchen are empty. Only in the maid's chambers There sounds a languishing sigh! What might this sigh be for? Sleep, my little prince, sleep, Sleep, sleep! Who is happier than you? Nothing but pleasure and peace! All trinkets and sugar, And a trotting stage-coach. Everyone's anxious and ready That my little prince will just not cry. But what will the future bring? Sleep, my little prince, sleep, Sleep, sleep!

On Dec 23, 2017, at 12:06 PM, juan <juan.g71@gmail.com> wrote:

On Fri, 22 Dec 2017 22:26:24 -0500 grarpamp <grarpamp@gmail.com> wrote:

...

http://beyondthemarquee.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/902274_10153332384195... https://img00.deviantart.net/580e/i/2012/043/5/a/giant_hammer___drow_by_zeph... https://i.pinimg.com/236x/f8/83/87/f883877b2cc9804048c3ef982500e86e--harly-q...

Found some holiday gifts for my friend Juan ;)

and speaking of thor and odin...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas

"Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ," - except that the fucking jesus turd was never born.

"Although the month and date of Jesus' birth are unknow..." but that motherfuking joo turd was never born so there's nothing to be known.

Now the very interesting thing is that the source of All Scientfic Progressive Wisodm known as "WIKIPEDIA" is actually a tool of fascist theocratic joo-kristian propaganda.

I agree, Wikipedia is badly skewed on this, but it seems like they are probably just following conventional thought on the issue. Which I feel is coming around to be more widely accepted that there was no Jesus as described in the gospels that started the early Christian church (though it was a common Jewish name - Yeshua - at that time in history, and there are a few other Yeshuas with messianic delusions described in the talmud from around the same time). They do have a “historicity of jesus” page, which at least has the following info - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus More recently Richard Carrier argues in his book On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt, that there is insufficient Bayesian probability, that is evidence, to believe in the existence of Jesus. Furthermore, he argues that the Jesus figure was probably originally known only through private revelations and hidden messages in scripture which were then crafted into a historical figure, to communicate the claims of the gospels allegorically. These allegories then started to be believed as fact during the struggle for control of the Christian churches of the 1st century.[106] Philip R. Davies has opined that a recognition that the historicity of Jesus is not entirely certain would nudge Jesus scholarship towards academic respectability[103] and R. Joseph Hoffmann at the Jesus Project noted that Jesus is getting more vague, ambiguous, and uncertain the more scholars study him, rather than the other way around.[116

On 12/24/2017 8:50 PM, John Newman wrote:

I agree, Wikipedia is badly skewed on this, but it seems like they are probably just following conventional thought on the issue. Which I feel is coming around to be more widely accepted that there was no Jesus as described in the gospels that started the early Christian church

This is stupid. There is plausible historical evidence that Jesus did not rise from the dead, nor did the sun stand still over one of the Empire's dominions, but we have ample historical evidence for Jesus the man, who was crucified by Pontius Pilate, and anyone who denies it is just stupid or ignorant. If anything, we have better historical evidence for Jesus the man than Mohammed the Prophet. In actual practice, the Church was founded by Paul, who used the conveniently dead Jesus as basis for what we now know as Christianity. Lots of aspects of the founding myth of Christianity are improbable, and either supported only by suspiciously weak evidence, or contradicted by compellingly strong evidence, but that Jesus lived and was crucified by Pontius Pilate is undeniable by anyone half way sane. The Jewish religion was in a holiness spiral which put them on course for a suicidal confrontation with Rome, therefore one would expect a prophet to condemn this holiness spiral in exactly the manner that Jesus is recorded as condemning it. And one would expect a prophet who spoke the truth on this matter to get crucified. As Jesus the man is recorded as being crucified. This aspect of the founding myth is inherently plausible, and is supported by compellingly strong evidence. --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

On December 24, 2017 7:57:52 PM EST, rooty <arpspoof@protonmail.com> wrote:

...

is coming around to be more widely accepted that there was no Jesus > as described in the gospels that started the early Christian church This is stupid. There is plausible historical evidence that Jesus did not rise from the dead, nor did the sun stand still over one of the Empire's dominions, but we have ample historical evidence for Jesus the man, who was crucified by Pontius Pilate, and anyone who denies it is just stupid or ignorant. If anything, we have better historical evidence for Jesus the man than Mohammed the Prophet. In actual

-------- Original Message -------- On Dec 24, 2017, 4:50 PM, James A. Donald wrote: On 12/24/2017 8:50 PM, John Newman wrote: > I agree, Wikipedia is badly skewed on this, but it seems like they are > probably just following conventional thought on the issue. Which I feel practice, the Church was founded by Paul, who used the conveniently dead Jesus as basis for what we now know as Christianity. Lots of aspects of the founding myth of Christianity are improbable, and either supported only by suspiciously weak evidence, or contradicted by compellingly strong evidence, but that Jesus lived and was crucified by Pontius Pilate is undeniable by anyone half way sane. The Jewish religion was in a holiness spiral which put them on course for a suicidal confrontation with Rome, therefore one would expect a prophet to condemn this holiness spiral in exactly the manner that Jesus is recorded as condemning it. And one would expect a prophet who spoke the truth on this matter to get crucified. As Jesus the man is recorded as being crucified. This aspect of the founding myth is inherently plausible, and is supported by compellingly strong evidence. --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.

https://www.avast.com/antivirus

Avast is virus you been had!

I don't get James Donald's email, so I can only reply indirectly: show me the evidence. There is contemporary evidence of the existence of Pontius Pilate... There is *no contemporary* evidence for Jesus. Even if you consider Josephus a contemporary, which he isn't, it is widely accepted that the few lines "he scribbled" on Jesus are a much later interpolation, a forgery done by some devout who was embarrassed at the paucity of evidence for the messiah. As for Tacitus - he was writing at an even later date, circa 120 CE, and if the brief passage in which he mentions Christus is not a forgery, its simply the case of him repeating propaganda he had heard from early Christians themselves. And thats it! I won't bother to mention the gospels themselves, which are hilariously contradictory, all written far too late, and obviously a bunch of religious propaganda filled with mystical nonsense. Also, it's funny hearing someone like James Donald opine on fact. This is not a man to be trusted on anything factual. James Donald knows fuck all about fact from fiction, and gleefully picks and chooses which is which, to suit his own fucked up and disgusting ideology. https://blog.jim.com tells you all you need to know about James Donald. Cheers John

On 12/27/2017 2:16 AM, juan wrote:

...

There is contemporary evidence of the existence of Pontius Pilate... There is *no contemporary* evidence for Jesus

You are a liar and a fool. The contemporary evidence for Pontius Pilate is exactly the same as the contemporary evidence for Jesus. Josephus was there, and he mentions both of them. Further, it is obvious that someone resembling Pontius Pilate had to exist, because the Roman Empire dominated that region, and it is obvious that prophets resembling Jesus the man had to exist, because the rabbis were in a holiness spiral, prophets would have condemned this, and would have been executed for condemning it. Various prophets are listed as doing this, and dying because of it, Jesus and a couple of Christians being prominent on the list.

On 12/27/2017 6:35 AM, juan wrote:

if you stupid lying cunt are unable to read a couple of basic articles and understand them,

The articles you cite lie: See wikipedia on this topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus Modern scholarship has largely acknowledged the authenticity of the reference in Book 20, Chapter 9, 1 of the Antiquities to "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James"[12] and considers it as having the highest level of authenticity among the references of Josephus to Christianity.[13][1][2][14][15][16] Almost all modern scholars consider the reference in Book 18, Chapter 5, 2 of the Antiquities to the imprisonment and death of John the Baptist also to be authentic and not a Christian interpolation.[17][18][19] The references found in Antiquities have no parallel texts in the other work by Josephus such as The Jewish War, written 20 years earlier, but some scholars have provided explanations for their absence.[20] A number of variations exist between the statements by Josephus regarding the deaths of James and John the Baptist and the New Testament accounts.[17][21] Scholars generally view these variations as indications that the Josephus passages are not interpolations, for a Christian interpolator would have made them correspond to the New Testament accounts, not differ from them.[17][22][21] In this, Wikipedia accurately reports the official consensus of official academia: However, on the dating of the gospels, the the official consensus of official academia is evidently untruthful, dating the gospels to after the fall of the temple and Jerusalem, because the gospels report Jesus as prophesying the fall of the Temple and Jerusalem. And they figure no one could have seen that coming. But you would expect someone who was critical of the holiness spiral going on at the time to prophesy the fall of Jerusalem, regardless of whether divinely inspired, God himself, or just another man like myself holding up his finger to see which way the wind blows. We can be sure that all four primary gospels were written before 70 C.E, because Jesus' prophecies concerning the fall of Jerusalem and the temple were vague, shifty, evasive and unfalsifiable, even though it was obvious at the time that the wind was blowing towards suicidal and self destructive war with the Roman empire Had they been written up after the fall of Jerusalem, they would have been remembered as much more specific concrete, and detailed. Shortly before the fall of Jerusalem, Christians did get specific and concrete prophecies about the fall (but by that time it was pretty obvious what was going to come down) and those more concrete prophecies were not misattributed to Jesus.

On 12/27/2017 8:17 AM, juan wrote:

yes - we - John and me - already discussed what sort of lying joke wikipedia is.

Yes, Wikipedia lies all the time, but what in this case Wikipedia does is list a pile of historical evidence for Jesus the man, which evidence you keep saying does not exist. So you have to refute that evidence, not just issue links to articles that deny the evidence exists. And, just as the general circumstances make it inevitable that someone like Pontius Pilate must have existed, the general circumstances make it inevitable that someone like Jesus the man must have existed. They don't make it inevitable, or even probable, that he rose from the dead etc, but they do make it inevitable that a prophet, indeed more than one prophet, would arise, and criticize the Jewish religious establishment for legalism and hypocrisy, and get executed for that.

On 12/27/2017 6:35 AM, juan wrote:

again, your mental vomits have been addressed multiple times.

You just repeat your lies over and over without explanation or argument. Repetitious assertion is unconvincing. One may reasonably doubt the existence of Christ the God, doubt that Jesus the man rose from the dead, but to doubt that Jesus the man lived, preached, and was executed, is just nuts.

Quite hilarious, ridiculous, depressing it is to see peoples slaughtering each other over both that which they cannot prove and that which they have not widely studied other systems in depth, further that for which there exists no widely publicly witnessed by the masses, in modern times, universally accepted by science as to known or unknown origin, miracles, revelations, supernatural phenomena, vision quest prophets or random bands of burning men now standing up to scrutiny of professed vs evidence, or otherwise. Belief held and respected is one thing, everything else is a complete joke. So chill the fuck out, before someday someone, many people, even you, get murdered over it. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_God https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_religious_groups https://wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations https://wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_irreligion https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance_of_religion_by_country https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology_of_religion https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_religion_and_science https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_religion https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_text https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncretism https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Life https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Death https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe

Oh My God! no seriously... As I walked religions I noticed it was like a collecting magnet for like minded core values...So right here might be a religion! Where is the flying pig emoji? smile Ilsa Bartlett Institute for Rewiring the System http://ilsabartlett.wordpress.com http://www.google.com/profiles/ilsa.bartlett www.hotlux.com/angel <http://www.hotlux.com/angel.htm> "Don't ever get so big or important that you can not hear and listen to every other person." -John Coltrane On Tue, Dec 26, 2017 at 5:52 PM, John Newman <jnn@synfin.org> wrote:

...

On Dec 26, 2017, at 8:25 PM, grarpamp <grarpamp@gmail.com> wrote:

Quite hilarious, ridiculous, depressing it is to see peoples slaughtering each other over both that which they cannot prove and that which they have not widely studied other systems in depth, further that for which there exists no widely publicly witnessed by the masses, in modern times, universally accepted by science as to known or unknown origin, miracles, revelations, supernatural phenomena, vision quest prophets or random bands of burning men now standing up to scrutiny of professed vs evidence, or otherwise.

Belief held and respected is one thing, everything else is a complete joke. So chill the fuck out, before someday someone, many people, even you, get murdered over it.

That’s already happened and happening. Religion is the opiate of the masses, or so they say - except I never caught anything like a a good morphine buzz from a bunch of delusional nonsense.

Humanity needs to kick the fucking habit. It’s healthier ;)

...

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_God https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_religious_groups https://wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations https://wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_irreligion https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance_of_religion_by_country https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology_of_religion https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_religion_and_science https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_religion https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_text https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncretism https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Life https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Death https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe

On 12/28/2017 1:27 PM, grarpamp wrote:

On Tue, Dec 26, 2017 at 8:52 PM, John Newman <jnn@synfin.org> wrote:>

...

That’s already happened and happening. Religion is the opiate of the masses, or so they say - except I never caught anything like a a good morphine buzz from a bunch of delusional nonsense.

Humanity needs to kick the fucking habit. It’s healthier ;)

Opiate? More like a drug that puts them in rage murder mode.

Social Justice Warriors always project. During the twentieth century, it was your side that committed all the mass murders, and when you deploy this rhetoric, I see another wave of mass murders coming.

On Wed, Dec 27, 2017 at 03:51:11PM -0300, juan wrote:

On Wed, 27 Dec 2017 08:27:46 +1000 "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com> wrote:

...

On 12/27/2017 6:35 AM, juan wrote:

...

again, your mental vomits have been addressed multiple times.

You just repeat your lies over and over without explanation or argument.

Repetitious assertion is unconvincing.

<snip> Holy shit, this is still going on. This is one of the reasons I blocked James "Jim" Donald so long ago. The other is that he is complete human garbage. So, warning, this post is completely off-topic, I'm not trying to debate the existence of Christ, to my mind the case is closed, and whosoever wants to believe some silly shit can believe as they will. This post is just about James Donald. He would be a menace if he weren't a total fucking crank; his ideology is still horrifying. So, feel free to stop reading here if you don't care about James Donald, or if you have a weak stomach. As I said before, all you need to know about Jim is is all over his blog, https://blog.jim.com. His latest entry, my apologies to anyone whom this makes ill, is a perfect example. I'm going to paste it below and after that I'm done with James Donald, directly or indirectly. This blog post is so fucking deranged, in such a mean, fucked up, way.. well, it can only speak for itself: All women are like that December 27th, 2017 Women are attracted to arrogant violent men. They are attracted to IQ<80 criminals because criminals are allowed to be violent, while high status males are not, with the result that the status hierarchy as perceived by women winds up upside down from the status hierarchy as perceived by men. AWALT. All women are like that. When people say that not all women are like that, NAWALT, it is like aging fat feminists saying that different men have different types so you can't say one type of beauty overrules the others. Not so: Men want to fuck young, beautiful and fertile women. Women want to fuck arrogant, violent, criminal men. That is all there is to it. We may nuance after accepting that, but only after accepting that. Brad Pitt got horribly burned. Einstein wound up with a KGB girl friend who cared more about Stalin than Einstein. Feynman needed to learn game, put on an asshole persona, did pretty much what I am doing. If not all women were like that, these famous men would have done better. Feynman scored, I scored, but if General Butt Naked had shown up, wearing a necklace of human eyeballs, an AK47, and nothing else, we would have been shit out of luck. All women react to the same stimuli in the same way. It is just a matter of which stimuli they get exposed to. If Feynman cannot score merely being brilliant, famous, and admired, Brad Pitt gets burned despite being rich, famous, and handsome, Einstein winds up having sex with the KGB and serving as a communist loudspeaker, then all women are like that. The lioness knows which lion to fuck, because she sees him killing her kittens. To align the crude, cruel, simplistic, vicious, and brutal female perception of the male status hierarchy with the subtle, complex, multidimensional, and nuanced reality of the male status hierarchy as actually organized by males, we need to legalize and socially support domestic discipline by taxpaying husbands and fathers, also husbands and fathers that are members of the military, the police, rentacops, and mercenaries. (McLintock), and back that discipline with conspicuously public state violence. We also need to make it legal to use violence on men who come sniffing round your women, as the law was under King Solomon. Then hypergamy will be eugenic, rather than dysgenic. Right now, hypergamy is massively dysgenic. Hence the character I play when interacting with fertile age women. Women have a primitive concept of power. And we men are all dancing monkeys. So, the thing we are forced to do is to become powerful as women understand power. Which unfortunately is anti civilizational and counter civilizational. Hence the need to modify civilization so that high status males get to perform more private violence. It is easier to have more private policing, to make male status hierarchies more convincing to women, than it is to make women have sex with the men that they should, and refrain from having sex with the men that they should not. When affluent respectable middle class white males beat misbehaving daughters and wives, and receive any necessary public assistance in so doing from police and authorities, while low lives do not receive similar assistance, then IQ<80 criminals will stop being so strangely attractive to women, and the guy in the corner office will find himself receiving hot letters from women he has never met. But that said, women are quite agreeable to being made to have sex. They prefer it that way. Resistance is a shit test, and they are turned on by being overpowered. So we need to make it the law that the man that they should have sex with, their husband, the father of their children, gets to overpower them. Posted in culture | 3 Comments

On Thu, 28 Dec 2017 00:16:24 -0200 Cecilia Tanaka <cecilia.tanaka@gmail.com> wrote:

On Dec 27, 2017 21:46, "John Newman" <jnn@synfin.org> wrote:

Holy shit, this is still going on. This is one of the reasons I blocked James "Jim" Donald so long ago. The other is that he is complete human garbage.

+ 1. I blocked James several months ago, never regretting my decision, John.

It's really sad and very contradictory watching this kind of evil and harmful people always mentioning God, Jesus and the Bible. Hypocrites like them deserve a special place on Hell.

donald is actually a perfect joo-kristian - please let's drop the bullshit about organized religion being good in any way. It is not. Especially the 'judeo-kristian' variety.

If God really exists, They are pure, sincere love and absolute compassion, never cruelty, any kind of prejudice, racism, intolerance, hate...

the joo-kristian god is a liar, a 'hater', cruel, racist and willing to exterminate all life on the planet - check the fucking bible for more details.

We are all Their sons and daughters,

oh come on

and we all received the gift of life the same way. We all are brothers and sisters, and we should make our best for our family.

It's extremely wrong and unethical spreading so intolerant and hateful ideas, using the Bible

what? the bible is extremely intolerant and hateful. As to people using the bible for hateful purposes, that's legitimate and sincere. The bible is totalitarian garbage and the source of totalitarian 'religions'. Again, let's not pretend otherwise.

- never a trustful source of "information" - or supposed "scientific" researches to "prove" the inferiority of other races or genders.

but the bible has been written by 'god' and it 'proves' all those things to people who 'have faith'.

I am deeply sad because good, kind and brave people are dying all the single days...

and all the non-joo kristians will burn in hell too.

And, unfortunately, real garbage fire people like Donald Trump,

trump is a great representative of what the US stands for since the time it was 'founded' as a slave society (and before)

KKK's and NAMBLA's members,

aren't gays supposed to be respected?

Zenaan Harkness and James Donald, among several others, are still alive, telling nasty lies, being cruel and disgusting, destroying and hurting the people, the good feelings that still remains in this world... </3

On Thu, 28 Dec 2017 02:20:41 -0200 Cecilia Tanaka <cecilia.tanaka@gmail.com> wrote:

My dearest Juan,

If I want to be an Atheist, a Shinto, a Jew, a Christian, or whatever, is my problem. It's my opinion, my faith, my personal belief.

So, if I want to believe in a hypothetical God full of love and compassion, the problem is mine. Only mine, Juan.

Oh you are free to believe whatever you want. You are even free to make your thoughts public. And the moment you do that, I am just as free to comment. So, no, when you make it public, the problem is not only yours. The fact of the matter is that you are trying to whitewash fucking joo-kristian theocracy, so do not invoke 'religious tolerance' for that sort of garbage please. This is what you said : "It's really sad and very contradictory watching this kind of evil and harmful people always mentioning God, Jesus and the Bible" But there's no contradiction at all : god, jesus and the bible are evil harmful garbage. So it's perfectly OK for evil people to talk about the evil joo god, evil fictional monkey jesus and the evil bible. All those horror stories were created by evil people after all.

I do have the right of imagining how would be God if They exist. I know I can be completely wrong about Their kindness and compassion, but... well... so what? Who does care about my religious opinion? Certainly, not you. :)

Of course I care about people promoting joo-kristian garbage and making the world a worse place.

And already read the Bible sometimes. It's very confused and contradictory. A horrible fiction book.

Take care, my dear, and eat lots of chocolate with urgency, please. I love you, but your bad mood is really annoying in some moments, aff... :P

c.

On Dec 28, 2017 13:42, "Cecilia Tanaka" <cecilia.tanaka@gmail.com> wrote: PS: - Yeah, I know I should do the same, but chocolate' smell is much better than its taste for me, hahaha!! ;D Juan, help, now I do need chocolate much more than you! Do you believe that a North-American "political analyst" claimed to have "mathematically" proven a conspiracy behind the assassination of John F. Kennedy?! Ugh, ugh, ugh!!! Ouch, it's so stupid that hurts! Poor Mathematics! (>_<)*

On Wed, Dec 27, 2017 at 05:57:22AM +1000, James A. Donald wrote:

On 12/27/2017 2:16 AM, juan wrote:

...

...

There is contemporary evidence of the existence of Pontius Pilate... There is *no contemporary* evidence for Jesus

You are a liar and a fool.

The contemporary evidence for Pontius Pilate is exactly the same as the contemporary evidence for Jesus. Josephus was there, and he mentions both of them.

Further, it is obvious that someone resembling Pontius Pilate had to exist, because the Roman Empire dominated that region, and it is obvious that prophets resembling Jesus the man had to exist, because the rabbis were in a holiness spiral,

For those (like me) who missed the memo, it means pretty much what it says - “turbocharged virtue signalling feedback loop”: https://greyenlightenment.com/holiness-spirals/

prophets would have condemned this, and would have been executed for condemning it.

Various prophets are listed as doing this, and dying because of it, Jesus and a couple of Christians being prominent on the list.

On 12/26/2017 11:24 PM, John Newman wrote:

There is contemporary evidence of the existence of Pontius Pilate... There is *no contemporary* evidence for Jesus. Even if you consider Josephus a contemporary, which he isn't, it is widely accepted that the few lines "he scribbled" on Jesus are a much later interpolation, a forgery done by some devout who was embarrassed at the paucity of evidence for the messiah.

It is plausibly *suspected* that *one* of Josephus's references to Jesus is a forgery, or more likely was improved by a Christian editor. There is no reason to doubt his other references to Jesus. Further, we have multiple references to the disciples of Jesus. That his movement existed is undeniable. We know that Jesus the man existed the same way we know that Pontius Pilate existed: Someone like Jesus the man had to exist, in that the rabbis were engaged in a holiness spiral, a holiness spiral will get called out by prophets, and then those prophets get suppressed, and someone like Pontius Pilate had to exist, in that the Roman Empire ruled the area, and history records Jesus as one of those prophets, and Pontius Pilate as one of the Roman Empire's administrators. And if our records of Jesus the man are a bit thin, our records of Pontius Pilate are not a whole lot thicker.

So let's reverse the lunatic logic of the joo-kristian scum. Why would a witch-doctor, pig-exorcist, be remembered after 2000 years and why would his lunatic 'teachings' 'conquer the world'? Well of course because the pig-exorcist is g-d - and it fucked itself, gave birth to itself, resurrected itself, etc. Obviously a pig-exorcist with such super-magical-pig powers would be remembered forever. Except for the little detail that the joo g-d doesn't exist and pig-exorcists can't resurrect themselves. They can't exorcise pigs either So why would an ordinary, fake pig exorcist who allegedy lived 2000 years ago be remembered today? The only reason for such lunatic horror tales to be remembered and become the central intellectual cancer of western 'civilization' is thanks to a vast conspiracy of theocrats who managed to ally themselves with the roman empire and all the statist scum that came after it.

On Wed, 27 Dec 2017 14:14:54 +1000 "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com> wrote:

On 12/27/2017 8:39 AM, juan wrote:

...

So let's reverse the lunatic logic of the joo-kristian scum.

Why would a witch-doctor, pig-exorcist, be remembered after 2000 years and why would his lunatic 'teachings' 'conquer the world'?

A religion is a synthetic tribe. A state needs a tribe, and tribe needs a state.

statists need tools to prey on their human cattle

Jewish religious tribalism was going nuts at the time, Roman paganism was dissolving in cynicism.

Also, Roman paganism had abandoned patriarchy, and as a result Romans had stopped reproducing.

Really? How did you learn that? What, roman culture was being attacked by your fellow american feminazi cunts from the 1970s? Or was it the 2017 feminazis from the pentagon (the ones running the tor project)? "had abandoned patriarchy" "had stopped reproducing" Wow. Very distinct 'scientific' claims. So where is the evidence?

Christianity retained Jewish patriarchy, so Christians were able to form families and reproduce.

....

Christianity is around because the state needed a religion, and because Christians had children.

That's the first HAlF correct thing you've said so far "the state needed a religion," - the part about christian reproduction is of course nonsense.

Constantine founded state Christianity, which made a disintegrating state viable, and gave the state a ruling elite that was able to reproduce successfully,

a program in due course imitated by Charles the Hammer, who proceeded to defeat Islam and found Europe.

"found europe" What, sombody had lost europe? Misplaced it?

Today, the ruling state religion is progressivism,

which is just a mutation of your beloved joo-kkkristian cancer - so why are you complaining?

but progressives, like Romans when their religion became decadent, cannot reproduce,

they can't?

and like Jews, when their religion became ever more insane in a holiness spiral, are engaged in ever more self destructive and warlike government policies.

so hopefully they will self-exterminate?

Thus, self destruction, which requires replacement by a sane and patriarchal state religion.

.... haha

Conservative Islam is adequately patriarchal, but, absent a Calif, tends to madness. Maybe we will make Mormonism the state religion,

isn't it already? I wonder why the utah datacenter is in utah....

or perhaps import Russia's eastern Orthodoxy. Our current state religion, progressivism, cannot survive, the only question is whether everyone else perishes with it.

http://news.gallup.com/poll/210704/record-few-americans-believe-bible-litera... 70% of intellctual amricunt monkeys believe the bible is either "Literal Word of God" or "inspired word of God"

On Thu, 28 Dec 2017 05:28:46 +1000 "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com> wrote:

...

"James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com> wrote:

...

Jewish religious tribalism was going nuts at the time, Roman paganism was dissolving in cynicism.

Also, Roman paganism had abandoned patriarchy, and as a result Romans had stopped reproducing.

On 12/28/2017 4:18 AM, juan wrote:

...

Really? How did you learn that?

By reading the histories of Josephus, who came mighty close to being forced to suicide by Jewish religious fanatics.

lolwut - that was allegedly because of his fight with the romans and I assume it's all made up bullshit anyway. Probably he betrayed and sold his comrades to the romans. Anyway, I took a look again at that "antiquities of the jews" abortion, and it turns out I overlooked what that 'book' really is (or perhaps had forgotten about it) I kinda assumed the book was some pseudo historical 'chronicle' about joo criminals, and how they looted raped and murdered (that is, a typical 'history book'), BUT it turns out that the 'book' is copypasta of 'religious' mental diarreah. Here's the opening, and the same garbage goes on for hundreds of pages " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. But when the earth did not come into sight, but was covered with thick darkness, and a wind moved upon its surface, God commanded that there should be light...." "When God gave the signal, and it began to rain, the water poured down forty entire days, till it became fifteen cubits higher than the earth;" <--- that's how the joo nazi god exterminated all non aquatic life on the planet (take note, Cecilia) - and bla bla bla endless lunatic rantings. Now according to mighty wikipedia, josephus "was a first-century Romano-Jewish scholar, historian" but of course josephus actually was a prime example of joo lunatic scammer who robotically parroted joo lies. So even if the "jesus" passage wasn't a blatant forgery, the source and its author are a laughing stock from the point of view of any half serious 'historical' research. but hey, according to james "Romans had stopped reproducing" because of "josephus".

By reading the laws of Augustus, who was simultaneously emancipating women (revealing that his nominal religion was dead in the water) and pressuring men to get married (revealing that men no longer wanted to marry emancipated women).

...

...

Christianity is around because the state needed a religion, and because Christians had children.

...

"the state needed a religion," - the part about christian reproduction is of course nonsense.

Over and over again, throughout the last two thousand years, it has been demonstrated that people who adhere to the Pauline laws on marriage reproduce at about seven live grown children per woman if there is adequate food, people who grossly deviate from these rules reproduce at slightly less than two children per woman, even if food is abundant.

Peoples that have bad marriage laws fail to reproduce and disappear from history.

Either we replace our current state religion of progressivism with a religion that supports marriage laws that enable people to safely form families, or we get replaced by conservative Islam.

Either way, female emancipation is going, but the second way it goes because our people, our culture, and our civilization disappears.

Obviously Jesus the man existed. But even if he had not existed, it is obvious that the pharisees (rabbis) were friggen crazy, generally hateful and vicious, were making, like modern social justice warriors, a power grab through claims of superior holiness, trying to out holy the traditional hereditary priesthood, and leading their people to self destruction, thus inevitably someone claiming to be a prophet of God would have arisen to call them out, and would have been executed for his troubles. Also inevitable that that prophet, if not of the line of Aaron, would claim to be of the line of David. The self destructiveness of today's Jews is a faint echo of the destructiveness and self destructiveness of the rabbis at that time, who got them enslaved and exiled, and their endless legalistic interpretation and re-interpretation and re-re-interpretation of the Jewish law is what got them into trouble in the first place. If Jews had stuck with the hereditary priesthood ordained by Moses, they would not have gotten into all this trouble, nor caused all the trouble that they have caused for other peoples. The Rabbis got their people killed, and those that were not killed were enslaved and/or exiled, but the rabbis got what they really wanted. They got power and the hereditary priesthood lost power, at the cost of destroying Jerusalem. So of course a prophet must have existed complaining about this crap, and of course his life and words would have somewhat resembled the life attributed to Jesus, in that he would criticize the hypocrisy and legalism of the religious establishment, in particular and especially the hypocrisy and legalism of the pharisees, and would have died of it.

On 12/25/2017 4:26 PM, juan wrote:

On Mon, 25 Dec 2017 10:50:59 +1000 "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com> wrote:

to address the mental christian vomits of supreme right wing 'libertarian' donald

http://www.worldfuturefund.org/History/jesushistory.html

JESUS CHRIST - NO HISTORICAL EVIDENCE

IN ONE OF THE MOST CAREFULLY DOCUMENTED PERIODS OF ROMAN AND ANCIENT HISTORY The time that Jesus Christ supposedly existed is one the most heavily documented periods in ancient history. Yet there is virtually zero historical evidence of his supposed existence in any contemporary historical record.

We have almost as much evidence for the existence of Jesus the man as we have for Pontius Pilate. Are you going to concluder that Romans had no one ruling Israel at the time? Granted, if he was God, you would expect him to have substantially more impact than Pontius Pilate, but he generated as much historical records as one would expect of yet another prophet and trouble maker in Israel. --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

On Mon, 25 Dec 2017 18:17:50 +1000 "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com> wrote:

On 12/25/2017 4:26 PM, juan wrote:

...

On Mon, 25 Dec 2017 10:50:59 +1000 "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com> wrote:

to address the mental christian vomits of supreme right wing 'libertarian' donald

http://www.worldfuturefund.org/History/jesushistory.html

JESUS CHRIST - NO HISTORICAL EVIDENCE

IN ONE OF THE MOST CAREFULLY DOCUMENTED PERIODS OF ROMAN AND ANCIENT HISTORY The time that Jesus Christ supposedly existed is one the most heavily documented periods in ancient history. Yet there is virtually zero historical evidence of his supposed existence in any contemporary historical record.

We have almost as much evidence for the existence of Jesus the man as we have for Pontius Pilate.

that's a stupid lie - why are you a stupid liar? - there's no evidence for joo turd jesus, apart from all the forged stuff. And all the forged stuff clearly proves that the jesus myth is a sick fraud. On the other hand, why would people bother forging documents about one obscure roman bureaucrat? The little information there's about pilate only tells you that he existed, not that he crucified any joo scammer-witch-doctor jesus ------------ https://www.atheists.org/activism/resources/did-jesus-exist/ This article written by former Interim President and current member of the Board of Directors Frank Zindler and is reprinted from the Summer 1998 edition of American Atheist magazine. I have taken it for granted that Jesus of Nazareth existed. Some writers feel a need to justify this assumption at length against people who try from time to time to deny it. It would be easier, frankly, to believe that Tiberius Caesar, Jesus’ contemporary, was a figment of the imagination than to believe that there never was such a person as Jesus. – N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Fortress, 1996) For most of my life, I had taken it for granted that Jesus, although certainly not a god, was nevertheless an historical personage – perhaps a magician skilled in hypnosis. To be sure, I knew that some of the world’s greatest scholars had denied his existence. Nevertheless, I had always more or less supposed that it was improbable that so many stories could have sprung up about someone who had never existed. Even in the case of other deities, such as Zeus, Thor, Isis, and Osiris, I had always taken it for granted that they were merely deified human heroes: men and women who lived in the later stages of prehistory – persons whose reputations got better and better the longer the time elapsed after their deaths. Gods, like fine wines, I supposed, improved with age. About a decade ago, however, I began to reexamine the evidence for the historicity of Jesus. I was astounded at what I didn’t find. In this article, I would like to show how shaky the evidence is regarding the alleged existence of a would-be messiah named Jesus. I now feel it is more reasonable to suppose he never existed. It is easier to account for the facts of early Christian history if Jesus were a fiction than if he once were real. Burden of Proof Although what follows may fairly be interpreted to be a proof of the non-historicity of Jesus, it must be realized that the burden of proof does not rest upon the skeptic in this matter. As always is the case, the burden of proof weighs upon those who assert that some thing or some process exists. If someone claims that he never has to shave because every morning before he can get to the bathroom he is assaulted by a six-foot rabbit with extremely sharp teeth who trims his whiskers better than a razor – if someone makes such a claim, no skeptic need worry about constructing a disproof. Unless evidence for the claim is produced, the skeptic can treat the claim as false. This is nothing more than sane, every-day practice. Unlike N. T. Wright, quoted at the beginning of this article, a small number of scholars have tried over the centuries to prove that Jesus was in fact historical. It is instructive, when examining their “evidence,” to compare it to the sort of evidence we have, say, for the existence of Tiberius Cæsar – to take up the challenge made by Wright. It may be conceded that it is not surprising that there are no coins surviving from the first century with the image of Jesus on them. Unlike Tiberius Cæsar and Augustus Cæsar who adopted him, Jesus is not thought to have had control over any mints. Even so, we must point out that we do have coins dating from the early first century that bear images of Tiberius that change with the age of their subject. We even have coins minted by his predecessor, Augustus Cæsar, that show Augustus on one side and his adopted son on the other.Citation 1 Would Mr. Wright have us believe that these coins are figments of the imagination? Can we be dealing with fig-mints? Statues that can be dated archaeologically survive to show Tiberius as a youth, as a young man assuming the toga, as Cæsar, etc.Citation 2 Engravings and gems show him with his entire family.Citation 3 Biographers who were his contemporaries or nearly so quote from his letters and decrees and recount the details of his life in minute detail.Citation 4 There are contemporary inscriptions all over the former empire that record his deeds.Citation 5 There is an ossuary of at least one member of his family, and the Greek text of a speech made by his son Germanicus has been found at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt.Citation 6 And then there are the remains of his villa on Capri. Nor should we forget that Augustus Cæsar, in his Res Gestæ (“Things Accomplished”), which survives both in Greek and Latin on the so-called Monumentum Ancyranum, lists Tiberius as his son and co-ruler.Citation 7 Is there anything advocates of an historical Jesus can produce that could be as compelling as this evidence for Tiberius? I think not, and I thank N. T. Wright for making a challenge that brings this disparity so clearly to light. There is really only one area where evidence for Jesus is even claimed to be of a sort similar to that adduced for Tiberius – the area of biographies written by contemporaries or near contemporaries.Note A It is sometimes claimed that the Christian Bible contains such evidence. Sometimes it is claimed that there is extrabiblical evidence as well. Let us then examine this would-be evidence. The Old Testament “Evidence” Let us consider the so-called biblical evidence first. Despite the claims of Christian apologists, there is absolutely nothing in the Old Testament (OT) that is of relevance to our question, apart from the possible fact that some prophets may have thought that an “anointed one” (a rescuer king or priest) would once again assume the leadership of the Jewish world. All of the many examples of OT “predictions” of Jesus are so silly that one need only look them up to see their irrelevance. Thomas Paine, the great heretic of the American Revolution, did just that, and he demonstrated their irrelevance in his book An Examination of the Prophecies, which he intended to be Part III of The Age of Reason.Note B The New Testament “Evidence” The elimination of the OT leaves only the New Testament (NT) “evidence” and extrabiblical material to be considered. Essentially, the NT is composed of two types of documents: letters and would-be biographies (the so-called gospels). A third category of writing, apocalyptic,Note C of which the Book of Revelation is an example, also exists, but it gives no support for the historicity of Jesus. In fact, it would appear to be an intellectual fossil of the thought-world from which Christianity sprang – a Jewish apocalypse that was reworked for Christian use.Citation 8 The main character of the book (referred to 28 times) would seem to be “the Lamb,” an astral being seen in visions (no claims to historicity here!), and the book overall is redolent of ancient astrology.Citation 9 The name Jesus occurs only seven times in the entire book, Christ only four times, and Jesus Christ only twice! While Revelation may very well derive from a very early period (contrary to the views of most biblical scholars, who deal with the book only in its final form), the Jesus of which it whispers obviously is not a man. He is a supernatural being. He has not yet acquired the physiological and metabolic properties of which we read in the gospels. The Jesus of Revelation is a god who would later be made into a man – not a man who would later become a god, as liberal religious scholars would have it. The Gospels The notion that the four “gospels that made the cut” to be included in the official New Testament were written by men named Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John does not go back to early Christian times. The titles “According to Matthew,” etc., were not added until late in the second century. Thus, although Papias ca. 140 CE (‘Common Era’) knows all the gospels but has only heard of Matthew and Mark, Justin Martyr (ca. 150 CE) knows of none of the four supposed authors. It is only in 180 CE, with Irenæus of Lyons, that we learn who wrote the four “canonical” gospels and discover that there are exactly four of them because there are four quarters of the earth and four universal winds. Thus, unless one supposes the argument of Irenæus to be other than ridiculous, we come to the conclusion that the gospels are of unknown origin and authorship, and there is no good reason to suppose they are eye-witness accounts of a man named Jesus of Nazareth. At a minimum, this forces us to examine the gospels to see if their contents are even compatible with the notion that they were written by eye-witnesses. We cannot even assume that each of the gospels had but one author or redactor. It is clear that the gospels of Matthew and Luke could not possibly have been written by an eye-witness of the tales they tell. Both writers plagiarizeNote D (largely word-for-word) up to 90% of the gospel of Mark, to which they add sayings of Jesus e and would-be historical details. Ignoring the fact that Matthew and Luke contradict each other in such critical details as the genealogy of Jesus – and thus cannot both be correct – we must ask why real eye-witnesses would have to plagiarize the entire ham-hocks-and-potatoes of the story, contenting themselves with adding merely a little gravy, salt, and pepper. A real eye-witness would have begun with a verse reading, “Now, boys and girls, I’m gonna tell you the story of Jesus the Messiah the way it really happened…” The story would be a unique creation. It is significant that it is only these two gospels that purport to tell anything of Jesus’ birth, childhood, or ancestry. Both can be dismissed as unreliable without further cause. We can know nothing of Jesus’ childhood or origin! Mark But what about the gospel of Mark, the oldest surviving gospel? Attaining essentially its final form probably as late as 90 CE but containing core material dating possibly as early as 70 CE, it omits, as we have seen, almost the entire traditional biography of Jesus, beginning the story with John the Baptist giving Jesus a bath, and ending – in the oldest manuscripts – with women running frightened from the empty tomb. (The alleged postresurrection appearances reported in the last twelve verses of Mark are not found in the earliest manuscripts, even though they are still printed in most modern bibles as though they were an “authentic” part of Mark’s gospel.) Moreover, “Mark” being a non-Palestinian non-disciple, even the skimpy historical detail he provides is untrustworthy. To say that Mark’s account is “skimpy” is to understate the case. There really isn’t much to the gospel of Mark, the birth legends, genealogies, and childhood wonders all being absent. Whereas the gospel of Luke takes up 43 pages in the New English Bible, the gospel of Mark occupies only 25 pages – a mere 58% as much material! Stories do indeed grow with the retelling. I have claimed that the unknown author of Mark was a non-Palestinian non-disciple, which would make his story mere hearsay. What evidence do we have for this assertion? First of all, Mark shows no first-hand understanding of the social situation in Palestine. He is clearly a foreigner, removed both in space and time from the events he alleges. For example, in Mark 10:12, he has Jesus say that if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery. As G. A. Wells, the author of The Historical Evidence for JesusCitation 10 puts it, Such an utterance would have been meaningless in Palestine, where only men could obtain divorce. It is a ruling for the Gentile Christian readers… which the evangelist put into Jesus’ mouth in order to give it authority. This tendency to anchor later customs and institutions to Jesus’ supposed lifetime played a considerable role in the building up of his biography. One further evidence of the inauthenticity of Mark is the fact that in chapter 7, where Jesus is arguing with the Pharisees, Jesus is made to quote the Greek Septuagint version of Isaiah in order to score his debate point. Unfortunately, the Hebrew version says something different from the Greek. Isaiah 29:13, in the Hebrew reads “their fear of me is a commandment of men learned by rote,” whereas the Greek version – and the gospel of Mark – reads “in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men” [Revised Standard Version). Wells observes dryly [p. 13], “That a Palestinian Jesus should floor Orthodox Jews with an argument based on a mistranslation of their scriptures is very unlikely.” Indeed! Another powerful argument against the idea that Mark could have been an eye-witness of the existence of Jesus is based upon the observation that the author of Mark displays a profound lack of familiarity with Palestinian geography. If he had actually lived in Palestine, he would not have made the blunders to be found in his gospel. If he never lived in Palestine, he could not have been an eye-witness of Jesus. You get the point. The most absurd geographical error Mark commits is when he tells the tall tale about Jesus crossing over the Sea of Galilee and casting demons out of a man (two men in Matthew’s revised version) and making them go into about 2,000 pigs which, as the King James version puts it, “ran violently down a steep place into the sea… and they were choked in the sea.” Apart from the cruelty to animals displayed by the lovable, gentle Jesus, and his disregard for the property of others, what’s wrong with this story? If your only source of information is the King James Bible, you might not ever know. The King James says this marvel occurred in the land of the Gadarenes, whereas the oldest Greek manuscripts say this miracle took place in the land of the Gerasenes. Luke, who also knew no Palestinian geography, also passes on this bit of absurdity. But Matthew, who had some knowledge of Palestine, changed the name to Gadarene in his new, improved version; but this is further improved to Gergesenes in the King James version. By now the reader must be dizzy with all the distinctions between Gerasenes, Gadarenes, and Gergesenes. What difference does it make? A lot of difference, as we shall see. Gerasa, the place mentioned in the oldest manuscripts of Mark, is located about 31 miles from the shore of the Sea of Galilee! Those poor pigs had to run a course five miles longer than a marathon in order to find a place to drown! Not even lemmings have to go that far. Moreover, if one considers a “steep” slope to be at least 45 degrees, that would make the elevation of Gerasa at least six times higher than Mt. Everest! When the author of Matthew read Mark’s version, he saw the impossibility of Jesus and the gang disembarking at Gerasa (which, by the way, was also in a different country, the so-called Decapolis). Since the only town in the vicinity of the Sea of Galilee that he knew of that started with G was Gadara, he changed Gerasa to Gadara. But even Gadara was five miles from the shore – and in a different country. Later copyists of the Greek manuscripts of all three pig-drowning gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) improved Gadara further to Gergesa, a region now thought to have actually formed part of the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. So much for the trustworthiness of the biblical tradition. Another example of Mark’s abysmal ignorance of Palestinian geography is found in the story he made up about Jesus traveling from Tyre on the Mediterranean to the Sea of Galilee, 30 miles inland. According to Mark 7:31, Jesus and the boys went by way of Sidon, 20 miles north of Tyre on the Mediterranean coast! Since to Sidon and back would be 40 miles, this means that the wisest of all men walked 70 miles when he could have walked only 30. Of course, one would never know all this from the King James version which – apparently completely ignoring a perfectly clear Greek text – says “Departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the Sea of Galilee…” Apparently the translators of the King James version also knew their geography. At least they knew more than did the author of Mark! John The unreliability of the gospels is underscored when we learn that, with the possible exception of John, the first three gospels bear no internal indication of who wrote them. Can we glean anything of significance from the fourth and latest gospel, the gospel of John? Not likely! It is so unworldly, it can scarcely be cited for historical evidence. In this account, Jesus is hardly a man of flesh and blood at all – except for the purposes of divine cannibalism as required by the celebration of the rite of “holy communion.” “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with god, and the word was god,” the gospel begins. No Star of Bethlehem, no embarrassment of pregnant virgins, no hint that Jesus ever wore diapers: pure spirit from the beginning. Moreover, in its present form, the gospel of John is the latest of all the official gospels.[Note F] The gospel of John was compiled around the year 110 CE. If its author had been 10 years old at the time of Jesus’ crucifiction in the year 30 CE, he would have been 80 years old at the time of writing. Not only is it improbable that he would have lived so long, it is dangerous to pay much attention to the colorful “memories” recounted by a man in his “anecdotage.” Many of us who are far younger than this have had the unpleasant experience of discovering incontrovertible proof that what we thought were clear memories of some event were wildly incorrect. We also might wonder why an eye-witness of all the wonders claimed in a gospel would wait so long to write about them! More importantly, there is evidence that the Gospel of John, like Matthew and Luke, also is a composite document, incorporating an earlier “Signs Gospel” of uncertain antiquity. Again, we ask, if “John” had been an eye-witness to Jesus, why would he need to plagiarize a list of miracles made up by someone else? Nor is there anything in the Signs Gospel that would lead one to suppose that it was an eye-witness account. It could just as easily have been referring to the wonders of Dionysus turning water into wine, or to the healings of Asclepius. The inauthenticity of the Gospel of John would seem to be established beyond cavil by the discovery that the very chapter that asserts the author of the book to have been “the disciple whom Jesus loved” [John 21:20] was a late addition to the gospel. Scholars have shown that the gospel originally ended at verses 30-31 of Chapter 20. Chapter 21 – in which verse 24 asserts that “This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true” – is not the work of an eye-witness. Like so many other things in the Bible, it is a fraud. The testimony is not true. Saint Saul And His Letters Having eliminated the OT and the gospels from the list of possible biblical “evidences” of the existence of Jesus, we are left with the so-called epistles. At first blush, we might think that these epistles – some of which are by far the oldest parts of the NT, having been composed at least 30 years before the oldest gospel – would provide us with the most reliable information on Jesus. Well, so much for blushes. The oldest letters are the letters of St. Saul – the man who, after losing his mind, changed his name to Paul. Before going into details, we must point out right away, before we forget, that St. Saul’s testimony can be ignored quite safely, if what he tells us is true, namely, that he never met Jesus “in the flesh,” but rather saw him only in a vision he had during what appears to have been an epileptic seizure. No court of law would accept visions as evidence, and neither should we. The reader might object that even if Saul only had hearsay evidence, some of it might be true. Some of it might tell us some facts about Jesus. Well, allright. Let’s look at the evidence. According to tradition, 13 of the letters in the NT are the work of St. Saul. Unfortunately, Bible scholars and computer experts have gone to work on these letters, and it turns out that only four can be shown to be substantially by the same author, putatively Saul. g These are the letters known as Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Galatians. To these probably we may add the brief note to Philemon, a slave-owner, Philippians, and 1 Thessalonians. The rest of the so-called Pauline epistles can be shown to have been written by other and later authors, so we can throw them out right now and not worry about them. Saul tells us in 2 Corinthians 11:32 that King Aretas of the Nabateans tried to have him arrested because of his Christian agitation. Since Aretas is known to have died in the year 40 CE, this means that Saul became a Christian before that date. So what do we find out about Jesus from a man who had become a Christian less than ten years after the alleged crucifixion? Precious little! Once again, G.A. Wells, in his book The Historical Evidence for Jesus [pp. 22-23], sums things up so succinctly, that I quote him verbatim: The…Pauline letters…are so completely silent concerning the events that were later recorded in the gospels as to suggest that these events were not known to Paul, who, however, could not have been ignorant of them if they had really occurred. These letters have no allusion to the parents of Jesus, let alone to the virgin birth. They never refer to a place of birth (for example, by calling him ‘of Nazareth’). They give no indication of the time or place of his earthly existence. They do not refer to his trial before a Roman official, nor to Jerusalem as the place of execution. They mention neither John the Baptist, nor Judas, nor Peter’s denial of his master. (They do, of course, mention Peter, but do not imply that he, any more than Paul himself, had known Jesus while he had been alive.) These letters also fail to mention any miracles Jesus is supposed to have worked, a particularly striking omission, since, according to the gospels, he worked so many. Another striking feature of Paul’s letters is that one could never gather from them that Jesus had been an ethical teacher… on only one occasion does he appeal to the authority of Jesus to support an ethical teaching which the gospels also represent Jesus as having delivered. It turns out that Saul’s appeal to the authority of Jesus involves precisely the same error we found in the gospel of Mark. In 1 Cor. 7:10, Saul says that “not I but the Lord, [say] that the wife should not separate from the husband.” That is, a wife should not seek divorce. If Jesus had actually said what Saul implies, and what Mark 10:12 claims he said, his audience would have thought he was nuts – as the Bhagwan says – or perhaps had suffered a blow to the head. So much for the testimony of Saul. His Jesus is nothing more than the thinnest hearsay, a legendary creature which was crucified as a sacrifice, a creature almost totally lacking a biography. Extrabiblical “Evidence” So far we have examined all the biblical evidences alleged to prove the existence of Jesus as an historical figure. We have found that they have no legitimacy as evidence. Now we must examine the last line of would-be evidence, the notion that Jewish and pagan historians recorded his existence. Jewish Sources It is sometimes claimed that Jewish writings hostile to Christianity prove that the ancient Jews knew of Jesus and that such writings prove the historicity of the man Jesus. But in fact, Jewish writings prove no such thing, as L. Gordon Rylands’ book Did Jesus Ever Live? pointed out nearly seventy years ago: …all the knowledge which the Rabbis had of Jesus was obtained by them from the Gospels. Seeing that Jews, even in the present more critical age, take it for granted that the figure of a real man stands behind the Gospel narrative, one need not be surprised if, in the second century, Jews did not think of questioning that assumption. It is certain, however, that some did question it. For Justin, in his Dialogue with Trypho, represents the Jew Trypho as saying, “ye follow an empty rumour and make a Christ for yourselves.” “If he was born and lived somewhere he is entirely unknown.” That the writers of the Talmud [4th-5th centuries CE, FRZ] had no independent knowledge of Jesus is proved by the fact that they confounded him with two different men neither of whom can have been he. Evidently no other Jesus with whom they could identify the Gospel Jesus was known to them. One of these, Jesus ben Pandira, reputed a wonder-worker, is said to have been stoned to death and then hung on a tree on the eve of a Passover in the reign of Alexander Jannæus (106-79 BC) at Jerusalem. The other, Jesus ben Stada, whose date is uncertain, but who may have lived in the first third of the second century CE, is also said to have been stoned and hanged on the eve of a Passover, but at Lydda. There may be some confusion here; but it is plain that the Rabbis had no knowledge of Jesus apart from what they had read in the Gospels.Citation 11 Although Christian apologists have listed a number of ancient historians who allegedly were witnesses to the existence of Jesus, the only two that consistently are cited are Josephus, a Pharisee, and Tacitus, a pagan. Since Josephus was born in the year 37 CE, and Tacitus was born in 55, neither could have been an eye-witness of Jesus, who supposedly was crucified in 30 CE. So we could really end our article here. But someone might claim that these historians nevertheless had access to reliable sources, now lost, which recorded the existence and execution of our friend JC. So it is desirable that we take a look at these two supposed witnesses. In the case of Josephus, whose Antiquities of the Jews was written in 93 CE, about the same time as the gospels, we find him saying some things quite impossible for a good Pharisee to have said: About this time, there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvelous things about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.Citation 12 Now no loyal Pharisee would say Jesus had been the Messiah. That Josephus could report that Jesus had been restored to life “on the third day” and not be convinced by this astonishing bit of information is beyond belief. Worse yet is the fact that the story of Jesus is intrusive in Josephus’ narrative and can be seen to be an interpolation even in an English translation of the Greek text. Right after the wondrous passage quoted above, Josephus goes on to say, “About the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder…” Josephus had previously been talking about awful things Pilate had done to the Jews in general, and one can easily understand why an interpolator would have chosen this particular spot. But his ineptitude in not changing the wording of the bordering text left a “literary seam” (what rhetoricians might term aporia) that sticks out like a pimpled nose. The fact that Josephus was not convinced by this or any other Christian claim is clear from the statement of the church father Origen (ca. 185-ca. 154 CE) – who dealt extensively with Josephus – that Josephus did not believe in Jesus as the Messiah, i.e., as “the Christ.” Moreover, the disputed passage was never cited by early Christian apologists such as Clement of Alexandria (ca.150-ca. 215 CE), who certainly would have made use of such ammunition had he had it! The first person to make mention of this obviously forged interpolation into the text of Josephus’ history was the church father Eusebius, in 324 CE. It is quite likely that Eusebius himself did some of the forging. As late as 891, Photius in his Bibliotheca, which devoted three “Codices” to the works of Josephus, shows no awareness of the passage whatsoever even though he reviews the sections of the Antiquities in which one would expect the disputed passage to be found. Clearly, the testimonial was absent from his copy of Antiquities of the Jews.Citation 13 The question can probably be laid to rest by noting that as late as the sixteenth century, according to Rylands,Citation 14 a scholar named Vossius had a manuscript of Josephus from which the passage was wanting. Apologists, as they grasp for ever more slender straws with which to support their historical Jesus, point out that the passage quoted above is not the only mention of Jesus made by Josephus. In Bk. 20, Ch. 9, §1 of Antiquities of the Jews one also finds the following statement in surviving manuscripts: Ananus… convened the judges of the Sanhedrin and brought before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ, and certain others. He accused them of having transgressed the law and delivered them up to be stoned. It must be admitted that this passage does not intrude into the text as does the one previously quoted. In fact, it is very well integrated into Josephus’ story. That it has been modified from whatever Josephus’ source may have said (remember, here too, Josephus could not have been an eye-witness) is nevertheless extremely probable. The crucial word in this passage is the name James (Jacob in Greek and Hebrew). It is very possible that this very common name was in Josephus’ source material. It might even have been a reference to James the Just, a first-century character we have good reason to believe indeed existed. Because he appears to have born the title Brother of the Lord,Note H it would have been natural to relate him to the Jesus character. It is quite possible that Josephus actually referred to a James “the Brother of the Lord,” and this was changed by Christian copyists (remember that although Josephus was a Jew, his text was preserved only by Christians!) to “Brother of Jesus” – adding then for good measure “who was called Christ.” According to William Benjamin Smith’s skeptical classic Ecce Deus,Citation 15 there are still some manuscripts of Josephus which contain the quoted passages, but the passages are absent in other manuscripts – showing that such interpolation had already been taking place before the time of Origen but did not ever succeed in supplanting the original text universally. Pagan Authors Before considering the alleged witness of Pagan authors, it is worth noting some of the things that we should find recorded in their histories if the biblical stories are in fact true. One passage from Matthew should suffice to point out the significance of the silence of secular writers: Matt. 27:45. Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour… Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. 51. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; 52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, 53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection [exposed for 3 days?], and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. Wouldn’t the Greeks and Romans have noticed – and recorded – such darkness occurring at a time of the month when a solar eclipse was impossible? Wouldn’t someone have remembered – and recorded – the name of at least one of those “saints” who climbed out of the grave and went wandering downtown in the mall? If Jesus did anything of significance at all, wouldn’t someone have noticed? If he didn’t do anything significant, how could he have stimulated the formation of a new religion? Considering now the supposed evidence of Tacitus, we find that this Roman historian is alleged in 120 CE to have written a passage in his Annals (Bk 15, Ch 44, containing the wild tale of Nero’s persecution of Christians) saying “Therefore, to scotch the rumour, Nero substituted as culprits, and punished with the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men, loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians. Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus…” G.A. Wells [p. 16] says of this passage: [Tacitus wrote] at a time when Christians themselves had come to believe that Jesus had suffered under Pilate. There are three reasons for holding that Tacitus is here simply repeating what Christians had told him. First, he gives Pilate a title, procurator [without saying procurator of what! FRZ], which was current only from the second half of the first century. Had he consulted archives which recorded earlier events, he would surely have found Pilate there designated by his correct title, prefect. Second, Tacitus does not name the executed man Jesus, but uses the title Christ (Messiah) as if it were a proper name. But he could hardly have found in archives a statement such as “the Messiah was executed this morning.” Third, hostile to Christianity as he was, he was surely glad to accept from Christians their own view that Christianity was of recent origin, since the Roman authorities were prepared to tolerate only ancient cults. (The Historical Evidence for Jesus; p.16). There are further problems with the Tacitus story. Tacitus himself never again alludes to the Neronian persecution of Christians in any of his voluminous writings, and no other Pagan authors know anything of the outrage either. Most significant, however, is that ancient Christian apologists made no use of the story in their propaganda – an unthinkable omission by motivated partisans who were well-read in the works of Tacitus. Clement of Alexandria, who made a profession of collecting just such types of quotations, is ignorant of any Neronian persecution, and even Tertullian, who quotes a great deal from Tacitus, knows nothing of the story. According to Robert Taylor, the author of another freethought classic, the Diegesis (1834), the passage was not known before the fifteenth century, when Tacitus was first published at Venice by Johannes de Spire. Taylor believed de Spire himself to have been the forger. So much for the evidence purporting to prove that Jesus was an historical figure. We have not, of course, proved that Jesus did not exist. We have only showed that all evidence alleged to support such a claim is without substance. But of course, that is all we need to show. The burden of proof is always on the one who claims that something exists or that something once happened. We have no obligation to try to prove a universal negative.Note J It will be argued by die-hard believers that all my arguments “from silence” prove nothing and they will quote the aphorism, “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” But is the negative evidence I have referred to the same as absence of evidence? It might be instructive to consider how a hypothetical but similar problem might be dealt with in the physical sciences. Imagine that someone has claimed that the USA had carried out atomic weapons tests on a particular Caribbean island in 1943. Would the lack of reports of mushroom-cloud sightings at the time be evidence of absence, or absence of evidence? (Remember, the Caribbean during the war years was under intense surveillance by many different factions.) Would it be necessary to go to the island today to scan its surface for the radioactive contamination that would have to be there if nuclear explosions had taken place there? If indeed, we went there with our Geiger-counters and found no trace of radioactive contamination, would that be evidence of absence, or absence of evidence? In this case, what superficially looks like absence of evidence is really negative evidence, and thus legitimately could be construed as evidence of absence. Can the negative evidence adduced above concerning Jesus be very much less compelling? It would be intellectually satisfying to learn just how it was that the Jesus character condensed out of the religious atmosphere of the first century. But scholars are at work on the problem. The publication of many examples of so-called wisdom literature, along with the materials from the Essene community at Qumran by the Dead Sea and the Gnostic literature from the Nag Hammadi library in Egypt, has given us a much more detailed picture of the communal psychopathologies which infested the Eastern Mediterranean world at the turn of the era. It is not unrealistic to expect that we will be able, before long, to reconstruct in reasonable detail the stages by which Jesus came to have a biography. They Should Have Noticed John E. Remsburg, in his classic book The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidence of His Existence (The Truth Seeker Company, NY, no date, pp. 24-25), lists the following writers who lived during the time, or within a century after the time, that Jesus is supposed to have lived: Josephus Juvenal Lucanus Philo-Judæus Martial Epictetus Seneca Persius Hermogones Silius Italicus Pliny Elder Plutarch Statius Arrian Pliny Younger Ptolemy Petronius Tacitus Appian Dion Pruseus Justus of Tiberius Phlegon Paterculus Apollonius Phædrus Suetonius Quintilian Valerius Maximus Pausanias Dio Chrysostom Lysias Florus Lucius Columella Pomponius Mela Lucian Valerius Flaccus Appion of Alexandria Quintius Curtius Damis Theon of Smyrna Aulus Gellius Favorinus According to Remsburg, “Enough of the writings of the authors named in the foregoing list remains to form a library. Yet in this mass of Jewish and Pagan literature, aside from two forged passages in the works of a Jewish author, and two disputed passages in the works of Roman writers, there is to be found no mention of Jesus Christ.” Nor, we may add, do any of these authors make note of the Disciples or Apostles – increasing the embarrassment from the silence of history concerning the foundation of Christianity. Notes It is sometimes claimed that the “miraculous” spread of Christianity in the early Roman Empire is evidence of an historical Jesus – that such a movement could not have gone so far so fast had there not been a real person at its inception. A similar argument could be made, however, in the case of the earlier rapid spread of Mithraism. I am unaware of any Christian apologists who would argue that this supports the idea of an historical Mithra! A profusely annotated paperback edition of Paine’s book is available from American Atheist Press for twelve dollars. (Order No. 5575, click here) [back] An apocalypse is a pseudonymous piece of writing characterized by exaggerated symbolic imagery, usually dealing with the expectation of an imminent cosmic cataclysm wherein the deity destroys the wicked and rewards the righteous. Apocalyptic writing abounds in hidden meanings and numerological puzzles. Parts of a number of Judæo-Christian apocalypses other than Revelation have been preserved, but only the latter (if one does not consider the Book of Daniel to be entirely apocalyptic) was accepted into the Christian canon – and it almost didn’t make it, having been rejected by several early Church Fathers and Church Councils. The opposite theory, often referred to as “Griesbach’s hypothesis,” that the author of Mark had “epitomized” the two longer gospels, keeping only the “essential” details, is today almost entirely rejected by bible scholars. While the arguments to support this nearly universal rejection are too involved to even summarize here, it may be noted that shortening of miracle stories is completely out of keeping with the principles of religious development seen everywhere today. Stories invariably get “better” (i.e., longer) with the retelling, never shorter! There is compelling evidence indicating that these alleged sayings of Jesus were taken from another early document known as Q (German, for Quelle, ‘source’). Like the so-called Gospel of Thomas found at Nag Hammadi in Egypt, Q appears to have been a list of wisdom sayings that at some point became attributed to Jesus. We know that at least one of these sayings (“We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced…” Matt. 17:11; Luke 7:32) derives from Æsop’s Fables, not from a sage of Galilee! I say “official gospels” because there are, in fact, many other gospels known. Once people started making them up, they sort of got stuck in over-drive. Only later on in Christian history did the number get pared back to four. Even the letters supposed to contain authentic writings of Saul/Paul have been shown by a number of scholars to be as composite as the gospels (e.g., L. Gordon Rylands, A Critical Analysis of the Four Chief Pauline Epistles: Romans, First and Second Corinthians, and Galatians, Watts & Co., London, 1929). According to such analyses, the core Pauline material in these letters is what might be termed a pre-Christian Gnostic product. This material is surrounded by often contradictory material added by proto-Catholic interpolators and redactors who succeeded thus in claiming a popular proto-Gnostic authority for the Church of Rome. In any case, the Greek text of these letters is heavy with terms such as Archon, Æon, etc. – jargon terms popular in the more astrologically conscious forms of Gnosticism. It would appear that the Christ of Paul is as astral a being as the Lamb of Revelation. Like the god of Revelation, the god of Paul communicates via visions, not physically, face-to-face. Originally, this would have been the title born by a member of a religious fraternity associated with the worship of Yahweh, who in Greek was always referred to as kurios (‘Lord’). This was carried over into primitive Christianity, where we know from I Cor. 9:5 that there existed a governing class coordinate with apostles that was called “Brothers of the Lord.” Misunderstanding of the original meaning of the title led to the belief that Jesus had siblings – an error that can be found already in the earliest of the canonical gospels. Interestingly, the embarrassing passages in the gospels where Jesus is rude to his mother and brethren would seem to derive from a period where a political struggle had developed between apostolically governed sects and those governed by “Brethren of the Lord,” who claimed authority now by virtue of an alleged blood relationship to Jesus – who had by then supplanted Yahweh as “Lord.” The apostolic politics of the gospel writers could not resist putting down the Brethren Party by having Jesus disregard his own family. If Jesus didn’t pay serious attention to his own family, the argument would go, why should anyone pay attention to their descendants? This is the only plausible explanation for the presence of such passages as John 2:4 (“Woman, what have I to do with thee?”) or Mark 3:33 (“Who is my mother, or my brethren?). Latinists often dispute the possibility of the passage being a forgery on the grounds that Tacitus’ distinctive Latin style so perfectly permeates the entire passage. But it should be noted that the more distinctive a style might be, the easier it can be imitated. Then too, there is a lapse from normal Tacitean usage elsewhere in the disputed passage. In describing the early Christians as being haters “of the human race” (humani generis), the passage reverses the word order of normal Tacitean usage. In all other cases, Tacitus has generis humani. Curiously, in the present case, it would seem that such proof is in fact possible. Since Jesus is frequently referred to as “Jesus of Nazareth,” it is interesting to learn that the town now called Nazareth did not exist in the first centuries BCE and CE. Exhaustive archaeological studies have been done by Franciscans to prove the cave they possess was once the home of Jesus’ family. But actually they have shown the site to have been a necropolis – a city of the dead – during the first century CE. (Naturally, the Franciscans cannot agree!) With no Nazareth other than a cemetery existing at the time, how could there have been a Jesus of Nazareth? Without an Oz, could there have been a Wizard of Oz? References Illustrated in Robin Seager, Tiberius, Eyre Methuen, London, 1972. For more detailed numismatic documentation of Tiberius, see also C. H. V. Sutherland, Roman History and Coinage 44 BC-AD 69, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1987; by the same author, Coinage in Roman Imperial Policy 31 B.C.-A.D. 68, Sanford J. Durst Numismatic Publications, NY, 1978. Illustrated in Seager, op. cit. Illustrated in Seager, op. cit. Examined in Sutherland, 1987, op. cit. See also Victor Ehrenberg and A. H. M. Jones, Documents Illustrating the Reigns of Augustus & Tiberius, 2nd Edition, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1955. See Inscriptiones Latinæ Selectæ, edidit Hermannus Dessau, reprinted in 4 vols. by Ares Publishers Inc., Chicago, 1979. Illustrated in Seager, op. cit. See Acta Divi Augusti, Regia Academia Italica, Rome, 1945. In her Anchor Bible Volume 38, Revelation (Doubleday, Garden City, NJ, 1975), J. Massyngberde Ford proposed that the core of Revelation was material written by Jewish followers of John the Baptist. Even if the Baptist had been an historical figure (which is extremely doubtful), this still would make Revelation in essence a pre-Christian, Jewish apocalypse. For more astrological aspects of Revelation, see Bruce J. Malina, On The Genre And Message Of Revelation: Star Visions and Sky Journeys, Hendrickson, Peabody, MA, 1995. George A. Wells, The Historical Evidence for Jesus, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY, 1982, p. 13. L. Gordon Rylands, Did Jesus Ever Live?, Watts & Co., London, 1929, p. 20. This so-called Testimonium Flavianum appears in Bk 18 Ch 3 §3 of Josephus: Jewish Antiquities Books XVIII-XIX, IX, translated by L. H. Feldman, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1981, pp. 48-51. J. P. Migne, Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Græca, Tomus CIII. Photius Constantinopolitanus Patriarcha, Garnier Fratres, Paris, 1900, Cod. 47, 76, and 238. [back] Rylands, op. cit., p. 14. William Benjamin Smith, Ecce Deus: Studies Of Primitive Christianity, Watts & Co., London, 1912, p. 235.

On Mon, 25 Dec 2017 07:28:53 -0500 Michalis Kargakis <kargakis@protonmail.ch> wrote:

Christ was crucified when he was 33 years old, ie. 33 CE. After they thought he died, he actually came back

lawl - the fucking turd didn't exist - what do you mean, "came back" ?

so I don't know what this piece is trying to debunk.

On Mon, 25 Dec 2017 10:49:18 -0500 Michalis Kargakis <kargakis@protonmail.ch> wrote:

"Came back" as in "ressurected". He likely experienced death on the cross but was able to "come back" at a later point in time (three days they say).

what are you talking about? - the jesus scammer never existed - let alone 'resurrected' - that's lunatic nonsense. When people die, they are dead forever.

Anyway, I want to make a point here that is you can never prove anything about anything you haven't experienced in your lifetime and even your experiences are influenced by a lot of external factors you have no control over.

if that was true, then what the hell are you saying about the jew scammer's resurrection? You are a radical skeptic....who promotes the sick jew-kristian horror tale? Something doesn't add up....

Long story short, it doesn't matter whether Christ actually existed or not and taking one side or the other is a lost cause. The story of Christ, specifically, teaches a way of life that religion has masqueraded for its own profit. Think for yourself.

you sopund like a jesus freak and active supporter of fraud, and you are telling me to think for myself? Well, go figure, that's what I'm doing. The one who is unable to think for himself is you apparently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj4JgoJRQsM

Regards, Michalis

...

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: USA: National Security Strategy, Juan's Wet Dream Local Time: December 25, 2017 4:23 PM UTC Time: December 25, 2017 3:23 PM From: juan.g71@gmail.com To: cp <cypherpunks@cpunks.org>

On Mon, 25 Dec 2017 07:28:53 -0500 Michalis Kargakis kargakis@protonmail.ch wrote:

...

Christ was crucified when he was 33 years old, ie. 33 CE. After they thought he died, he actually came back

lawl - the fucking turd didn't exist - what do you mean, "came back" ?

...

so I don't know what this piece is trying to debunk.

On Mon, 25 Dec 2017 11:40:55 -0500 Michalis Kargakis <kargakis@protonmail.ch> wrote:

:off-topic:

Drugs may be a way out for you.

what are you talking about ? I'll take the fact that you ignored my previous message as proof that youy are a fucking jew-kristian scammer.

I don't know. Let me know if you need any advice.

lawl - you are in no postion to give advice, you fucking scammer.

Regards, Michalis

...

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: USA: National Security Strategy, Juan's Wet Dream Local Time: December 25, 2017 5:25 PM UTC Time: December 25, 2017 4:25 PM From: juan.g71@gmail.com To: cp <cypherpunks@cpunks.org>

On Mon, 25 Dec 2017 10:49:18 -0500 Michalis Kargakis kargakis@protonmail.ch wrote:

...

"Came back" as in "ressurected". He likely experienced death on the cross but was able to "come back" at a later point in time (three days they say).

what are you talking about? - the jesus scammer never existed - let alone 'resurrected' - that's lunatic nonsense. When people die, they are dead forever.

...

Anyway, I want to make a point here that is you can never prove anything about anything you haven't experienced in your lifetime and even your experiences are influenced by a lot of external factors you have no control over.

if that was true, then what the hell are you saying about the jew scammer's resurrection? You are a radical skeptic....who promotes the sick jew-kristian horror tale? Something doesn't add up....

...

Long story short, it doesn't matter whether Christ actually existed or not and taking one side or the other is a lost cause. The story of Christ, specifically, teaches a way of life that religion has masqueraded for its own profit. Think for yourself.

you sopund like a jesus freak and active supporter of fraud, and you are telling me to think for myself? Well, go figure, that's what I'm doing. The one who is unable to think for himself is you apparently.

...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj4JgoJRQsM Regards, Michalis

...

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: USA: National Security Strategy, Juan's Wet Dream Local Time: December 25, 2017 4:23 PM UTC Time: December 25, 2017 3:23 PM From: juan.g71@gmail.com To: cp cypherpunks@cpunks.org On Mon, 25 Dec 2017 07:28:53 -0500 Michalis Kargakis kargakis@protonmail.ch wrote:

...

Christ was crucified when he was 33 years old, ie. 33 CE. After they thought he died, he actually came back

lawl - the fucking turd didn't exist - what do you mean, "came back" ?

...

so I don't know what this piece is trying to debunk.

On Mon, 25 Dec 2017 12:02:20 -0500 Michalis Kargakis <kargakis@protonmail.ch> wrote:

AHAHAHHA

That's how you collect proofs?

For the most part, your use of oxygen seems unfortunate

that's a fitting comment for jew-kristian scum - shouwing your true colors. As to proofs, maybe you already forgot what you typed 10 minutes ago, you fucking scammer. Let me refresh your memory. "Christ was crucified when he was 33 years old, ie. 33 CE. After they thought he died, he actually came back so I don't know what this piece is trying to debunk." ""Came back" as in "ressurected". He likely experienced death on the cross but was able to "come back" at a later point in time (three days they say)." Piece of scamming shit Kargakis sees an explanation of jew-kristian forgeries are replies with "I don't know what this piece is trying to debunk" "turd jesus was 'actually' 'resurrected'" You should stop lying, scum. It's morally wrong. but I am

certainly entertained! :)

Regards, Michalis

...

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: USA: National Security Strategy, Juan's Wet Dream Local Time: December 25, 2017 5:49 PM UTC Time: December 25, 2017 4:49 PM From: juan.g71@gmail.com To: cp <cypherpunks@cpunks.org>

On Mon, 25 Dec 2017 11:40:55 -0500 Michalis Kargakis kargakis@protonmail.ch wrote:

...

:off-topic: Drugs may be a way out for you.

what are you talking about ?

I'll take the fact that you ignored my previous message as proof that youy are a fucking jew-kristian scammer.

...

I don't know. Let me know if you need any advice.

lawl - you are in no postion to give advice, you fucking scammer.

...

Regards, Michalis

...

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: USA: National Security Strategy, Juan's Wet Dream Local Time: December 25, 2017 5:25 PM UTC Time: December 25, 2017 4:25 PM From: juan.g71@gmail.com To: cp cypherpunks@cpunks.org On Mon, 25 Dec 2017 10:49:18 -0500 Michalis Kargakis kargakis@protonmail.ch wrote:

...

"Came back" as in "ressurected". He likely experienced death on the cross but was able to "come back" at a later point in time (three days they say).

what are you talking about? - the jesus scammer never existed - let alone 'resurrected' - that's lunatic nonsense. When people die, they are dead forever.

...

Anyway, I want to make a point here that is you can never prove anything about anything you haven't experienced in your lifetime and even your experiences are influenced by a lot of external factors you have no control over.

if that was true, then what the hell are you saying about the jew scammer's resurrection? You are a radical skeptic....who promotes the sick jew-kristian horror tale? Something doesn't add up....

...

Long story short, it doesn't matter whether Christ actually existed or not and taking one side or the other is a lost cause. The story of Christ, specifically, teaches a way of life that religion has masqueraded for its own profit. Think for yourself.

you sopund like a jesus freak and active supporter of fraud, and you are telling me to think for myself? Well, go figure, that's what I'm doing. The one who is unable to think for himself is you apparently.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj4JgoJRQsM Regards, Michalis

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-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: USA: National Security Strategy, Juan's Wet Dream Local Time: December 25, 2017 4:23 PM UTC Time: December 25, 2017 3:23 PM From: juan.g71@gmail.com To: cp cypherpunks@cpunks.org On Mon, 25 Dec 2017 07:28:53 -0500 Michalis Kargakis kargakis@protonmail.ch wrote:

> Christ was crucified when he was 33 years old, ie. 33 CE. After > they thought he died, he actually came back

lawl - the fucking turd didn't exist - what do you mean, "came back" ?

> so I don't know what this > piece is trying to debunk.

On December 25, 2017 1:26:52 AM EST, juan <juan.g71@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, 25 Dec 2017 10:50:59 +1000 "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com> wrote:

to address the mental christian vomits of supreme right wing 'libertarian' donald

http://www.worldfuturefund.org/History/jesushistory.html

JESUS CHRIST - NO HISTORICAL EVIDENCE

IN ONE OF THE MOST CAREFULLY DOCUMENTED PERIODS OF ROMAN AND ANCIENT HISTORY The time that Jesus Christ supposedly existed is one the most heavily documented periods in ancient history. Yet there is virtually zero historical evidence of his supposed existence in any contemporary historical record. It is also important to understand that an absolute reign of terror was instituted when Christianity seized power in the Roman Empire as documented in our Christian Totalitarianism Report. The Church appointed an official historian of dubious ethics, Eusebius, to write an official history. Meanwhile, Christian launched the largest book burning campaign in history, destroying a vast part of the wisdom and history of the ancient world forever.

The Account of Josephus is a Fraud

When discussing the alleged existence of Jesus Christ, one piece of "evidence" that frequently gets mentioned is the account of Flavius Josephus, the famed Jewish general and historian who lived from 37 to 100 C.E. In Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews there is a notorious passage regarding Christ called the "Testimonium Flavium."

"Now, there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works,--a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day." (Whitson, 379).

This brief piece of evidence which supposedly contributed the best "proof" of Jesus's existence has actually been proven to be a fraud. It has been demonstrated continuously over the centuries that "Testamonium Flavium" was a forgery manufactured by the Catholic Church, and was inserted into Josephus's works. The Testamonium Flavium account is so thoroughly refuted, that biblical scholars since the 19th century have refused to refer to it, unless to mention its false nature.

Dr. Gordon Stein gives a further explanation for this forgery. The History of Jesus: A Reply to Josh McDowell.

Another source is The Jesus Forgery: Josephus Untangled.

First Written Accounts of Jesus's Life Occur Decades After His Purported Existence

Most written accounts of the life of Jesus did not exist until a couple decades after his purported existence. These accounts were presented by a number of different authors and had somewhat conflicting stories about his existence. These written accounts are known as the Gospels. Also, it is worth knowing that not all of the gospels that were written even made their way into the bible. Only four gospels became the canonical writings for the church. The rest were burned, destroyed or lost. Historians estimate that the first written gospel, the gospel of Mark, was written sometime after 70 C.E, which means that at the earliest, it would have been written 40 years after the alleged crucifixion of Jesus.

PLINY, TACITUS AND SUETONIUS: NO PROOF OF JESUS

Nero's Persecution of Christians and Mention of Jesus is Highly Doubtful

There is widespread belief that Nero blamed the burning of Rome on the Christians; however, there are many holes in this theory.

This belief comes from the account of the Roman historian Tacitus (56-120 CE) about how Emperor Nero (37 - 68 CE) blamed the burning of Rome on "those people who were abhorred for their crimes and commonly called Christians." The passage then states that the fire agitators were followers of "Christus" who "was put to death as a criminal by the procurator Pontius Pilate." The passage then also states that Christians constituted a "vast multitude at Rome" and goes on to discuss the ghastly ways in which they were persecuted.

However, there are many troubling details about the historical accuracy of this passage. Some critics call into question whether Tacitus wrote this account at all, or if it was yet another forgery. Around the date of Nero's Fire, 64 AD, there were no "multitude of Christians" in Rome. At this time, there was not even a multitude of Christians in Judea. Therefore, it is highly doubtful that Nero would refer to Christians in this way.

This is also the only mention of Christians in the work of Tacitus, despite the fact that he wrote several volumes

Also, the supposed persecution of the Christians by Nero is not recorded by any other historian of Nero's time. If the persecution of Christians were really that widespread, wouldn't other historians be writing about it? (Truth Be Known)

Pliny's Letter About "Christiani"

In addition to the Testomonium Flavianum, there exists another tenuous piece of evidence that some have tried to use as proof for the existence of Jesus. The Roman Historian, Pliny The Younger (62-113CE), wrote a letter to the Emperor Trajan in 110 CE requesting his assistance in the proper punishment of a group of "Christiani" who were causing trouble and would not bow to the image of the emperor. According to Pliny, these Christiani would meet before daylight and sing hymns with responses to "Christ as God."

However, this letter does not provide concrete evidence for the existence of Jesus as a person since it makes no direct mention of "Jesus of Nazareth," nor does it refer to his life. Also, there are many critics who have argued that this letter is a forgery. (Truth Be Known)

Suetonius's Reference to "Chresto"

The last piece of questionable historical evidence we'll discuss here is the passage in Suetonius's Life of Claudius, dating around 110 CE. There is a reference in this work to a figure named "Chresto" who caused the Jews to riot in Rome. First of all, if Jesus Christ did exist, it is not possible that he would have been in Rome at this time. Claudius reigned from 41-54 CE, this is at the time of Christ's alleged crucifixion.

LINKS

Jesus Never Existed

"Jesus Never Existed," by Kenneth Humphreys (Amazon Book)

Did Jesus Exist? (Huffington Post)

Jesus Never Existed At All (Atheism Resource)

The Origins of Christianity and the Quest for Historical Jesus Christ

The Jesus Forgery: Josephus UntangledHistory's Troubling Silence About Jesus

Yes, very nice ;) I wouldn't have bothered with my indirect reply to Jim if I had read this first. Cheers John