The initial assertion is that religious regimes have been responsible for atrocity.
My response is so have atheist regimes. This response is to try to be fair, as it won’t do to have the religious segment singled out on this.
Then my reasoning is because it tells us something about the universal human predicament, in that we are all fucked up, to some degree, or at least, we appear to have it in us to do this stuff, whether religious or not.
Constantine is a wider discussion. You are right in saying everything you did. I rattled off his name in a list off the top of my head, in response to Macot saying Jesus didn’t even exist, and there is not proof for that.
If we want to delve into that aspect further, please consider the article I just posted, which talks about documentary evidence for Jesus in relation to Julius Caesar.
I have read the article and the main premise is to discount contemporary and valid historically verifiable versions by saying that manuscripts written later define them with the sole purpose of giving credibility to the Gospels. There is really no comparison; Caeser is an historical person about whom much has been written and is known, from his upbringing, his rise, his role in the First Triumvirate to his wars against Pompeii and his conquest of Gaul and foray to Britain.
You have a book, the format of which was decided by said Council of Nicea by said Constantine said centuries later, with none of these historical and verifiable evidence that the article is claiming is more evidence of Jesus than we have of Caeser. I am actually enjoying this topic as I have very few people to discuss one of my passions with, which is history, so I’m sorry mate but that is… not particularly good.
Twelve manuscripts detailing Caesar’s life, the earliest of which is dated 900 years after the events.
Documentary evidence for Jesus much stronger - more manuscripts, and also in closer proximity to the events, in comparison to Caesar.
Further, the article outlines several sources of documentary evidence, again within much closer proximity to the events than the Caesar documentation, about Jesus from those who would be considered enemies.
If this is too tangential, it is offered in response to Mascot saying there is no evidence for Jesus’ existence.
’ Two of the most important sources for the emperor’s life, however, Suetonius and Plutarch, write in the early second century. That’s more than 100 years after the time of Caesar.
Manuscript support lies behind these sources. And this is where things get especially interesting. Around 12 manuscripts are essential for determining the wording of Caesar’s account. The oldest manuscript is from the ninth century—a full 900 years removed from the actual events. The list extends to manuscripts from the 12th century. Cicero’s speeches have an even older pedigree. They have about 15 manuscripts ranging from AD 400 to 800. Sallust’s account has around 20 manuscripts from the 10th and 11th centuries. Plutarch’s Lives is also mostly divided across six key manuscripts that range from the 10th and 11th centuries. Suetonius’s manuscript is dated AD 820. Classics scholars build much of our understanding of Caesar around these sources, even though their manuscript traditions contain significant gaps of time.’
It’s a complete deflection and little more than a poor hatchet job on Cicero, who lived through Caeser’s time, Plutarch (who did not just write about Caesar) and Seutonius to claim that our evidence for Caesar is suddenly 900 years removed. It’s absolutely barmy. I can happily talk history for hours but jeez, there has to be some line drawn or a common denominator where we can agree a baseline of facts and when a blatant distortion of facts is being used as the counter argument then…, well. Like I said, barmy. Sorry bud.
Nope. Not definitely. Probably. As I said before, and you didn’t read, his actions around and following the battle of Moscow made some of his communist party colleagues suspect he might secretly believe (as a great many people between 1917 and 1943 did). But on balance of evidence, he was probably not a believer.
What we can be sure about, is that he reintroduced a state church to Russian life, create a state religion, and used it to underpin his rule.
He didn’t, as you suggested, seek to drive religion from Russia. You seem to have a bit of a problem acknowledging that. Or that Hitler wasn’t an atheist.
No, my position on this has been clear. Stalin was probably an atheist. But the brutal rule he created needed two things a) the backing of a state religion b) devotional worship of Stalin himself, as if was a god.
Because that’s generally what happened.
I’d dispute the idea of ‘atheist regime’. Secular might be a better word, but then, yet again, we can return to Hitch - these are not regimes suffering from an over abundance of reason and evidence.
That’s because you’ve continually ignored points that are inconvenient to your arguments. You selective quote. You make false assertions and when there are corrected you. And I’m not the only one to notice this.
For example, I just posted a lengthy explanation of the beliefs and methodology of Lamaitre in response to your claim that The Big Bang was an idea rooted in religion.
You have just ignored it, and something tells me in a few days you’ll be making the same claim again.
I said there is no evidence for Jesus’ existence. I can accept there might have been someone knocking about at the time who people started following. But even if you can prove a person called Jesus existed, you certainly can’t prove he did all the stuff attributed to him in the bible.
I believe reference was made by Josephus, a Jewish historian, and Tacitus, a Roman one but other than oblique references there isn’t any detail or chronicle. I also, believe, that there was a figure in and around that time. I also think it began the biggest game of broken telephone around.
@Mascot if I comment on Lemaitre again, and I may, I will do it on my own timetable if it’s all the same! I have a whole life going on here as I duck in and out of this. (We all do!)
Lemaitre is just one example of a religious person who made a scientific contribution. There are many who could be named, throughout history and up to today.
You seem to want to make a construct that wants to cleave the man in two - religious part over there, nutjob; scientific part over here, how civilized and progressive.
People don’t work like that.
Lemaitre’s whole understanding of life was theistic, and yes, he made an excellent scientific contribution that has shaped us and advanced our understanding.
If you did read the article, your summary isn’t fair.
It talks about documentary evidence for Jesus, which is significantly greater than for Julius Caesar, and the source documents are much closer to the time of events.
It also includes extra Biblical references to.
I’m slightly losing the will to live if the position is maintained that there is no evidence that Jesus existed.
Imagine collecting and compiling tons of documentary evidence, and then being told, well, er yes… you can have anything you like, apart from this collection!
It’s ridiculous.
Still, consider the extra Biblical documentary evidence in the article.
Lemaitre himself insisted on keeping his religion separate from his science.
And the main point I was making was this.
His religion had little to do with his work on the Big Bang. Lemaitre himself instead on that.
You don’t have to get beyond Wikipedia to understand this
By 1951, Pope Pius XII declared that Lemaître’s theory provided a scientific validation for Catholicism.[34] However, Lemaître resented the Pope’s proclamation, stating that the theory was neutral and there was neither a connection nor a contradiction between his religion and his theory.[35][36][15] Lemaître and Daniel O’Connell, the Pope’s scientific advisor, persuaded the Pope not to mention Creationism publicly, and to stop making proclamations about cosmology.[37] Lemaître was a devout Catholic, but opposed mixing science with religion,[37] although he held that the two fields were not in conflict.[38]
By the way, are you ready yet to acknowledge that you were wrong that Hitler was an Atheist and wrong that Stalin tried to eradicate religion from Russia? Still living in hope.
The bible isn’t documentary evidence. It’s a collection of stories written decades after the fact and edited continually to suit the political agendas.
It’s circular logic. You you believe Jesus because of the bible. You believe in the bible because of Jesus.