From: Bernt Budde <bug@arachne.udac.uu.se>
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated
Subject: Re: Documentary evidence for Jesus' existence
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 17:01:49 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: UDAC, Uppsala, Sweden

>>From my reading on the matter (my interest are largely based in more
>>modern crackpot cults that are closer to me...), mad prophets were
>>thirteen to the dozen at the time. It wasn't particularly strange to
>>howl at the moon and call yourself Messiah then... hardly something
>>that rated as a mental problem; just a (dangerous) career...

>>And being related to gods, wasn't the Egyptian pharaos that first? But
>>Jesse was before the Japanese emperors? I bet, if you studied history,
>>that if the first claim rules, like our studied Mr Buckley seems to
>>say, we have to join some old South American religion or something...
>  that's not what i'm claiming.  i'm claiming that the one god
>who claimed to be the supreme god, who backed up his claim with an
>autobiography in scripture and in the person of jesus is worthy
>of acknowledging as god.  God isn't the *first* to claim to be a god,
>but he is the only to claim to be The God.

If you think that "autobiography" is such a strong selling point, I'd
like you to clarify a few things:

Considering the faults (in translaigthion and history falsifications) of
the Bible, I wonder about the thrutfulness about your god? He seems to
make more fact faults than an average politician writing his biblio-
graphy!.) (See, e g Bertrand Russel's "History of western philosophy"
for examples.)

Would you want to comment on the reason an allpowerful god would do such
a thing? (to teach humility to His people?.)

Btw, in Russel's book he comments that Jehova from the beginning was a
tribe god, but nothing special. He didn't become "THE" god until after
the Babylonian captivity (they rewrote the bible to fit, too...) Could
anyone knowledgeable comment on this? (It was a long time since I read
that book and it's quite old.)

Could Mr Buckley comment on what new claim he will make for his religion
to be the only true one? (If Russel still holds water; it was written
more than fifty years ago, I think)

And, after commenting on that, I'd like to see some Christian with a
strong faith, like Mr Buckley, comment on how sure they can be about
being *right* in their faith, considering:

 the unreliability of personal experiences (quite easy to get. I wrote
about it a few days ago. I can do it again if anyone has the stamina)

 there is definitly, surely no other proof. BUT some strong hints
pointing the other way. (The number of big religions, the way they change
to suit the present world, etc. All fits well with a psychological and
sociological explanation why religions exists.)


Bernt Budde                            |Religion, n: A daughter of
bug@arachne.udac.uu.se                 |Hope and Fear, explaining to
UDAC (Uppsala Univ. Computing Centre)  |Ignorance the Nature of the
                                       |Unknowable.
Don't for a moment believe UDAC,       |
while being a nice place, have         |-Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's
opinions like me!!                     |                 Dictionary