10 MN to 720 MN: Christian Demographics in Africa.

[TheGentlemanBastard]

Why does this fucking @Xavier troll get fed so well everywhere it goes?!? Post after post, thread after thread, until it dominates the recent post listings. Bad christer arguments are all over the internet. Why must we entertain them here?

[Thumpalumpacus]

Why does this fucking @Xavier troll get fed so well everywhere it goes?!? Post after post, thread after thread, until it dominates the recent post listings. Bad christer arguments are all over the internet. Why must we entertain them here?

We've been around and been bored by these dumbasses. Younger atheists cut their teeth on them.

[Paleophyte]

The narrative around Paul contains a variety of details that lend it an authenticity that would be hard to fake. I'd expect something that was invented from whole cloth to be more obviously synthetic.

Start with his origins. If you want somebody with credibility it would be much simpler to pick any of the less well-known apostles and retcon them. Andrew would be near ideal due to being obscure despite being the older brother of Peter. Write a gospel in his name and you're off to the races. Instead we get this twerp who never met Jesus, except in a dream (honestly!), who was actively hostile to the early Christians prior to his "conversion". Smacks of exactly what we see in nearly every religion that we have records on where the originator leaves a power vacuum that gets filled by somebody oily (Mormons, JWs, Bahai Faith, Scientologists).

Next you have his little tiff with the other apostles. Why even write that in, much less write both sides of the account with different endings? Much tidier for Paul to simply be granted authority by a grateful Peter and James and for their accounts to match that if you're inventing it. Instead we get what looks like two different accounts of early schismatic infighting, with Paul's version painting him in a much better light.

Lastly, you have Paul featuring in most of the early churches in some manner or other. These have a wide geographical and cultural distribution, so injecting Paul into the synthetically and having it work without somebody piping up "Paul who?" for all of history to see would be absurdly difficult given the organic way in which religions evolve. In a few cases Paul is even reviled (Ebionites) for disposing of Abrahamic Law. If smoothing out inconvenient details is what you're after it's much simpler to just guide existing elements of a religion. Though why anybody would bother is the big question. Most believers don't notice the obvious breaks in their religion where, just as an example, it's pretty blindingly obvious that they killed their own Lord and Saviour and a thinking person might wonder if he wasn't harbouring a grudge. With true believers you just tell them not to even think of those pesky questions or they'll spend an eternity broiling on Satan's BBQ for their heresy.

[Paleophyte]

Why does this fucking @Xavier troll get fed so well everywhere it goes?!? Post after post, thread after thread, until it dominates the recent post listings. Bad christer arguments are all over the internet. Why must we entertain them here?

Because it's fun to see if we can derail his meaningless drivel into a genuine discussion on something more interesting that has nothing to do with him or his ramblings.

[Minimalist]

Why does this fucking @Xavier troll get fed so well everywhere it goes?!? Post after post, thread after thread, until it dominates the recent post listings. Bad christer arguments are all over the internet. Why must we entertain them here?

We've been around and been bored by these dumbasses. Younger atheists cut their teeth on them.

He's a warm-up block!

[Minimalist]

do you suppose our new chew toy would watch this?

[Thumpalumpacus]

We've been around and been bored by these dumbasses. Younger atheists cut their teeth on them.

He's a warm-up block!

Used to be a right-wing shithead on a guitar forum I used to post at, who was always a day late and a dollar short. I just called him Speedbag, telling him he was the dummy warm-up until the real thinkers came in. Boppitaboppitaboppita!

I trolled him into threatening me and earning his own ban. Man, I was a dickhead back then.

[Szuchow]

He's a warm-up block!

Used to be a right-wing shithead on a guitar forum I used to post at, who was always a day late and a dollar short. I just called him Speedbag, telling him he was the dummy warm-up until the real thinkers came in. Boppitaboppitaboppita!

I trolled him into threatening me and earning his own ban. Man, I was a dickhead back then.

Thing is that real thinkers never come, at least in my experience.  I mean even Martin Heidegger supposedly good philosopher sounded as dumb as bag of bricks any time he was quoted in one or other book about nazis. If he couldn't pass muster then no random right wing troll ever will I think.

[Inkubus]

Why does this fucking @Xavier troll get fed so well everywhere it goes?!? Post after post, thread after thread, until it dominates the recent post listings. Bad christer arguments are all over the internet. Why must we entertain them here?

You have it right there. Whenever the three horsemen of the atrocious (Stevie, Huggy, Xavier) appear, the site traffic count shoots up. And that is all that matters to admin, the headcount.

Never mind the quality, feel the width.

[jerry mcmasters]

Min's is the first time I've ever heard there was no Paul and Paul letters in the first century.

Think of this, Jerry.  The 4 gospels which Irenaeus was so fond of are anonymous.  At some point in time the names of matthew, mark, luke and john were attached to them.  For the record Justin never heard of those 4 assholes either, and he was writing in the early 160's CE ( Antoninus Pius died in 161.)  Some human did that.  There was no god involved.

That's very different from no real first century Paul or real first century letters.  The four gospels aren't letters and read very much like authoritative "story time" which it's easy to imagine was motivated by church authors making up stuff about the past to serve current (presumably post-first century) needs.  It's easily seen gospel to gospel.  But the Pauline letters it's hard to imagine their content and their author being created from full imagination in the second century or later, there must have been at least some core material to start with.  Paleophye in post 78 does a better job than I could explaining some of the issues.  Occam's Razor may not always bear truth, but the simplest explanation seems to be there really was a zealous religious kook wandering around that area interacting with fellow cultists.  And this being unobserved by historians of the time seems not surprising, no reason to think these were anything but small obscure gatherings of kooks here and there with a Paul character trying to get everyone on brand and on message (though we may not know what the original brand and message was).  We know this kind of thing was going on all over the area with other kooks, quacks, messiahs, prophets, and nuts, some of which there is record of and no doubt others unknown.

So in the span of one short sentence you are actually asking 3 questions.

1-  Was there a Paul?
2-  Did he or someone else write letters?
3-  Was it the first century BCE or CE?

Absolutely.

There is another historical fact that merits some consideration.  Between 146 and 44 BCE, there was no Corinth.  The Romans had razed the city and it was a desolate ruin for well over a hundred years.  Worse, while Julius Caesar planned to re-establish it as a colony for his veterans he was murdered in 44 and never saw the plan through.  One has to wonder how much progress was made in the ensuing 20 years as one civil war after another raged across, mainly Greece?  

It's hard to imagine Corinth being much of a going concern in the first century BCE or CE.  However, we know that by the 2d century it was well on the way to recovery.  But, damn.  There's that lousy 2d century again!

So it was a small and insignificant gathering of kooks in a small and insignificant little town.  Would this not help to explain Paul and a Corinthian "church" (probably too small and disorganized to deserve that label) not being noticed and recorded by historians and writers of the day?

[jerry mcmasters]

Why does this fucking @Xavier troll get fed so well everywhere it goes?!? Post after post, thread after thread, until it dominates the recent post listings. Bad christer arguments are all over the internet. Why must we entertain them here?

You have it right there. Whenever the three horsemen of the atrocious (Stevie, Huggy, Xavier) appear, the site traffic count shoots up. And that is all that matters to admin, the headcount.

Never mind the quality, feel the width.

?  I can't imagine admin gets anything out of this site besides a headache.

[Inkubus]

You have it right there. Whenever the three horsemen of the atrocious (Stevie, Huggy, Xavier) appear, the site traffic count shoots up. And that is all that matters to admin, the headcount.

Never mind the quality, feel the width.

?  I can't imagine admin gets anything out of this site besides a headache.

? Instead of blowing sugar up their arses, ask why they do nothing about trolls.

[jerry mcmasters]

?  I can't imagine admin gets anything out of this site besides a headache.

? Instead of blowing sugar up their arses, ask why they do nothing about trolls.

Personally I don't have a problem with the Christians, it gives us all something to discuss and sometimes side conversations are interesting.  I don't care about others applying pressure though.

Seriously though is there something about the forum that admins benefit from with increased traffic?

[Inkubus]

[quote="Inkubus" pid='434918' dateline='1723730940']

? Instead of blowing sugar up their arses, ask why they do nothing about trolls.

Personally I don't have a problem with the Christians, it gives us all something to discuss and sometimes side conversations are interesting.  I don't care about others applying pressure though.

We are not talking Christians we are talking trolls.

Seriously though is there something about the forum that admins benefit from with increased traffic?

I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.

Nods: C Babbage.

[jerry mcmasters]

Seriously though is there something about the forum that admins benefit from with increased traffic?

I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.

Nods: C Babbage.

Well they're your words, they shouldn't be confusing the person who typed them:

And that is all that matters to admin, the headcount.

Never mind the quality, feel the width.

Why does it matter?  Are we running ads?  Seriously am I missing something really obvious here?

[Inkubus]

Yes

[jerry mcmasters]

Yes

Seriously I don't get this.  Is money involved in this forum somehow?

[Minimalist]

Think of this, Jerry.  The 4 gospels which Irenaeus was so fond of are anonymous.  At some point in time the names of matthew, mark, luke and john were attached to them.  For the record Justin never heard of those 4 assholes either, and he was writing in the early 160's CE ( Antoninus Pius died in 161.)  Some human did that.  There was no god involved.

That's very different from no real first century Paul or real first century letters.  The four gospels aren't letters and read very much like authoritative "story time" which it's easy to imagine was motivated by church authors making up stuff about the past to serve current (presumably post-first century) needs.  It's easily seen gospel to gospel.  But the Pauline letters it's hard to imagine their content and their author being created from full imagination in the second century or later, there must have been at least some core material to start with.  Paleophye in post 78 does a better job than I could explaining some of the issues.  Occam's Razor may not always bear truth, but the simplest explanation seems to be there really was a zealous religious kook wandering around that area interacting with fellow cultists.  And this being unobserved by historians of the time seems not surprising, no reason to think these were anything but small obscure gatherings of kooks here and there with a Paul character trying to get everyone on brand and on message (though we may not know what the original brand and message was).  We know this kind of thing was going on all over the area with other kooks, quacks, messiahs, prophets, and nuts, some of which there is record of and no doubt others unknown.

So in the span of one short sentence you are actually asking 3 questions.

1-  Was there a Paul?
2-  Did he or someone else write letters?
3-  Was it the first century BCE or CE?

Absolutely.

There is another historical fact that merits some consideration.  Between 146 and 44 BCE, there was no Corinth.  The Romans had razed the city and it was a desolate ruin for well over a hundred years.  Worse, while Julius Caesar planned to re-establish it as a colony for his veterans he was murdered in 44 and never saw the plan through.  One has to wonder how much progress was made in the ensuing 20 years as one civil war after another raged across, mainly Greece?  

It's hard to imagine Corinth being much of a going concern in the first century BCE or CE.  However, we know that by the 2d century it was well on the way to recovery.  But, damn.  There's that lousy 2d century again!

So it was a small and insignificant gathering of kooks in a small and insignificant little town.  Would this not help to explain Paul and a Corinthian "church" (probably too small and disorganized to deserve that label) not being noticed and recorded by historians and writers of the day?

It's going to be almost impossible to keep this thread on topic, here goes.

That's very different from no real first century Paul or real first century letters.

Why?  It was still a basically illiterate society and, if there is any truth to the church account - which I doubt - then jesus' followers were illiterate, aramaic-speaking peasants, in a subsistence economy ( who were willing to starve for a day to go listen do some guy talk about bullshit after they died.)  
How did one send a "letter" in the first century?  Did you ever think about that?  One could not walk to the corner and drop in in a mail box for the post office to pick up.  There was an official messenger system but that was for military or governmental purposes or high-ranking senators could slip in the occasional letter to another noble, and most assuredly this paul shit would not qualify.  So letters were hand-delivered by travelers.  That  would mean, as you correctly note in your final observation, that "Paul" would have had to find someone traveling from wherever he was - recall that he supposedly was always moving around - and just happened to be going to that "insignificant gathering of kooks in a small and insignificant little town," as you quite eloquently phrased it.  Ask yourself what triggered "Paul" to write such a letter?  We can reliably assume that no one in Corinth sent him a telegram or called him up on the phone to report the problem.  He did not read about it in a newspaper, or see a report on cable news.  No, someone from Corinth would have had to track him down and hand a letter to him - or more probably deliver an oral message since again literacy was so low.

That raises the question of how the condition outlined in the beginning of the letter - the group fragmenting behind different leaders - could have happened in what would have been, at best, a dozen people gathering in someone's house.  All of this happening about 20+ years after the alleged jesus got his ass nailed up to a board.  One simply has to be sceptical of the whole situation outlined.  It assumes a degree of vibrancy among these scattered groups of "Kooks" in the first century which did not exist for centuries.  Roman history scholars have estimated that perhaps 5% of the population were "christians" by the time of Constantine in the 4th century.  But they were not a unified group.  There was no "church," per se with the power to enforce doctrinal decisions.  That came later.

I always laugh at the story of how this Paul guy was going to Damascus to 

"9 And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest,

2 And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.

Acts 9

and wondered what the Roman authorities in Damascus would have had to say about some smelly jew kidnapping citizens to bring them to Jerusalem.

That whole thing is fucking idiotic.

But I digress.

FACTS:  The original colony of Corinth was such a raging "success" that Emperor Vespasian felt compelled to "refound" the colony in the 70s CE.

FACTS:  While campaigning against Jewish rebels in Galilee Vespasian sent a "gift" of some 6,000 captured Jews to Nero who had just begun a maniacal plan to hack a passage through the isthmus of Corinth.  Such plan failed when Nero committed suicide and the country spiralled into Civil War but there were probably still a few of those slaves at least who were still alive in the area.

FACTS:  The Greek geographer, Pausanias, visited Corinth during the reign of Hadrian (117-138) and wrote a book about his travels.  Pausanias had a particular fascination for various shrines and temples and all sorts of myths.  He reports no synagogues in Corinth in the early 2d century.  He does not mention any Jews or Christians at all and certainly never mentions them at each other's throats.  

Oddly, archaeology has found evidence of a {probable} synagogue in the 5th century:

https://holylandphotos.org/browse.asp?s=...g=GSPLCO02

Written in Greek, it reads ". . . GOGE EBR . . ." = [SYNA]GOGE EBR[AION] — which can be translated as "Synagogue of the Hebrews [= Jews]." It probably dates to the fifth century A.D. and is evidence of a Jewish population in Corinth at that time. The book of Acts (18:4–17) gives evidence of Paul preaching in the synagogue of Corinth in his day and even mentions leaders of the synagogue such as Crispus and Sosthenes

So, sometime after the Romans kicked their asses out of Judaea (135 CE) a Jewish presence eventually developed in Corinth.  I don't see how that helps "Paul" at all.  But you'll note that it never stops the religitards from jumping to wild conclusions!

[Minimalist]

So in the span of one short sentence you are actually asking 3 questions.

1-  Was there a Paul?
2-  Did he or someone else write letters?
3-  Was it the first century BCE or CE?

1. We have only the "assurances" of the church fucks that there was.  I'm not impressed because they re-wrote history after the won.

2- That's like asking when did 'Saul" become "Paul?"  Again, its a story.  So is Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  

3-  It is less important when they were written.  What is more important is when were they last edited and who did the editing.

[pattylt]

do you suppose our new chew toy would watch this?

I’ve probably watch this ten times…I really miss Hitch.  No one could as deep with words as he.

[jerry mcmasters]

Why does this fucking @Xavier troll get fed so well everywhere it goes?!? Post after post, thread after thread, until it dominates the recent post listings. Bad christer arguments are all over the internet. Why must we entertain them here?

You have it right there. Whenever the three horsemen of the atrocious (Stevie, Huggy, Xavier) appear, the site traffic count shoots up. And that is all that matters to admin, the headcount.

Never mind the quality, feel the width.

Anybody care to enlighten me on what this is about?  Cat's got Inky's tongue.

[jerry mcmasters]

So in the span of one short sentence you are actually asking 3 questions.

1-  Was there a Paul?
2-  Did he or someone else write letters?
3-  Was it the first century BCE or CE?

1. We have only the "assurances" of the church fucks that there was.  I'm not impressed because they re-wrote history after the won.

2- That's like asking when did 'Saul" become "Paul?"  Again, its a story.  So is Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  

3-  It is less important when they were written.  What is more important is when were they last edited and who did the editing.

For me, none of this is "important."  It's just interesting solving or coming as close as you can to what you think is the truth of this puzzle, knowing you will never know for sure.  In that sense, Number 3 is very important and actually vital, is there something from the first century that is the source material that then was manipulated post-first century, or not?  (I understand your answer to be "no" btw)  Post first century chicanery of some degree is a given based on us knowing several letters like Colossians (I think) are pretty sure to be purposely forged letters.  It's interesting that that "degree" may be the actual creation of all the letters, I had never heard that theory before.

[Minimalist]

Again, these scholars claim to have found evidence within the epistles themselves indicating when they were written.  But what they are reading is what we have now, not whatever served as originals.

Marcion cited "Paul" as the only true apostle of jesus.  Marcionism held that the jewish god was just some scumbag of a god who created the world not the god who sent jesus.

Why the fuck would Marcion have cited "Paul" if those letters did not support that position?


Their response to all that is "Paul says........."

We don't know what fucking "Paul" said and frankly I wouldn't care what he said.  Reading that shit he sounds like a delusional asshole.

[Thumpalumpacus]

do you suppose our new chew toy would watch this?

I’ve probably watch this ten times…I really miss Hitch.  No one could as deep with words as he.

He was brilliance in action, and not just about god and stuff. Why Orwell Matters is a great book that is criminally overlooked.

[jerry mcmasters]

I’ve probably watch this ten times…I really miss Hitch.  No one could as deep with words as he.

He was brilliance in action, and not just about god and stuff. Why Orwell Matters is a great book that is criminally overlooked.

I have his collection of essays "Arguably."  One of them is about how world political currents of that time almost caused Animal Farm to never see the light of day.  The guy could turn a phrase like no other.