![chasedelephant Wal Mart Now Selling Anti Gay Childrens Books [UPDATED]](http://cdn.truthwinsout.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/chasedelephant.jpg "chasedelephant")
Great, now they’re marketing hate speech at the Wal-Mart. I understand that Wal-Mart caters to a certain, um, clientele, much of the time, but is this really necessary?
A children’s book written by the wife of anti-gay Standard of Liberty president Stephen Graham is being carried by over 100 Walmart stores. Chased by an Elephant, the Gospel Truth about Today’s Stampeding Sexuality by Janice Barrett Graham was written to “help shed the clear light of truth on today’s dark and tangled ideas about male and female, proper gender roles, the law of chastity, and the God-given sexual appetite,” according to Janice Graham in the book’s introduction.
“The number of our young people involved in sexual sins has greatly increased in recent years. Some of the most stalwart-seeming youth find themselves involved in pornography, fornication, promiscuity, homosexuality, and the like,” Janice continued.
The Grahams claim that their son, Andrew, successfully changed his sexual orientation and is now a happily married man.
And Andrew wrote a book about being in the closet too!
Whatever happened to The Poky Little Puppy, which is still, by my expert opinion, the finest children’s book of all time?
Why do these bigots feel the need to plant the idea in their kids’ heads when they’re children that, if they happen to be gay, they’re evil?
And then, as Sarah Silverman said in her video, they’re just shocked when kids start bullying other kids to death for being gay. Sarah’s right: they learn it from watching the purported “adults” in their lives. Adults like Janice Barrett Graham and her confused son.
Also, what on earth is up with that book cover? Is the elephant gay? If so, why is he not pink? And why is he so menacing? Is this what, in the author’s warped little mind, she thinks happened to her son? Why is the kid unsupervised out in elephant-land? These are important questions.
[h/t Queerty]
UPDATE: Hahahah, commenter Theresa on our Facebook page, in regards to this story:
“Yeah, Poky Little Puppy beats the hell out of Stampeding Jesus Sex Elephant. Sorry, Wal-Mart.”
Stampeding Jesus Sex Elephant is either the best name for a children’s book ever, or maybe a phenomenal name for a band.
LOL… testing our faith… The dumbest concept in all religion. It’s like beating your wife to see if she’s devoted enough to stay with you after that.
Alex wrote (101), “LOL… testing our faith… The dumbest concept in all religion.”
Yes, that concept is certainly pretty damn dumb, but dumbest? I don’t know – the competition for the title, dumbest, is so fierce that I don’t think I could ever pick a clear winner.
Ironically, maybe one reason so many people believe a religion is true, is precisely because the concepts ARE so incredibly dumb. They may think that no human could have possibly made up this stuff, therefore a god MUST have done it.
Michael, it’s not proof God doesn’t exist, but rather proof that Christian fundies will arrogantly spew their b******t regardless of whether or not it’s true, and they don’t care how many kids they may be hurting in the process. Which isn’t much of a shock, really.
They also have really poor taste in illustrators. That cover is the ugliest piece of lazy crap I’ve seen on a published work in a long time. Photoshop gradients and dodge/burn airbrush shadows? What is this, Deviantart?
If you are interested, an example of someone who walked in homosexual relationships for years before finding freedom in Christ is Stephen Bennett.
You can read his story here…
http://www.sbministries.org/members/sbm/adminpages/testimony-stephen-bennett
http://www.truthwinsout.org/tag/stephen-bennett/
Nice try, CS.
I didn’t end up with as much time to reply today as I would have liked. I see the same topic brought up by Warwick, Emily, and Makyui, which is asking me what proof I have offered.
[snip]
Okay, it keeps coming back.
Y’all, it’s a troll.
“I have not been trying to offer proof.”
Yeah, and that’s exactly the problem. You’re making assertions of truth with absolutely nothing to back it up, including assertions that go against reality, which you then deny outright because it goes against your bigotry against gay people. And you’re expecting people to throw their lives and their health away based on your lies.
“In Mark 9:24 a man said to Jesus…”
Captain Kirk once said, “No more blah, blah, blah!” Don’t care what the characters in your book have to say, because their words carry no more weight than Captain Kirk’s.
We’re living in the real world, here. And in the real world, praying doesn’t turn gay people straight, unbelief doesn’t cause homosexuality, and telling LGBT people that they’re horrible people unless they can follow impossible rules that only apply because you said so, is abominable.
“A few electrical signals in the nervous system? Utter futility.
Physical pleasure in this life is thoroughly temporary. The chemical sloshings of our brains has no more significance than a piece of bread thrown into a lake.”
And that’s the most disgusting thing you’ve said all day. Where the f**k do you get off? Thoughts and feelings and individual personality are no different from dead matter, unless we’re mindless puppets here for the amusement of a petty magic man who demands naive obedience and the denial of reality or else he’ll punish us for eternity? You’re a self-deluding moron.
“There is so much more to this gift that is life than pursuing the next buzz/rush/cheer/thrill/smile/etc.”
Yes there is, and you’re the one trying to take that away from people by reducing them to f*****g bread, and telling them that they’re so disgusting for something that wasn’t even their fault that they deserve to be tortured for eternity, and that we’re all utterly insignificant and worthless without the mercy of an invisible tyrant. And you’re doing it because you’re so arrogant that you believe everything you say MUST be right simply because you believe it.
And by the way, you didn’t actually answer Alex’s question. If your god made us, then he made us with a prostate that feels f*****g good to poke with a penis (AND is actually healthy for it and helps fend off prostate disease). If anal sex (which, by the way, is often done by heterosexual people and actually isn’t very common in homosexual sex) was so abominable, why did he go to the effort of making it feel so good?
…Ooops. That’s what I get for not hitting refresh after a long reply. Sorry, Evan. You can delete or modify as you see fit.
Oh, y’all are free to talk to it, Makyui, but I think it’s a troll.
Oh, and I love the fact that Alex pulled the prostate argument out, because it’s the most hilarious rebuttal to the “biological parts fit lahk thiiiiii-us” argument ever.
While Makyui was apparently typing, I zapped Ryan’s last comment because it’s the same old recycled Bible-butchering that the Ancients like me have read a million times. I figure, if Ryan wants to start an ex-gay blog, he can start one somewhere else. Thanks, Makyui, for capturing the gist of the comment.
I also put Ryan on moderation.
It sure fits in there pretty smashingly, considering it’s supposedly soooo horrible and abominable and offensive to the guy who supposedly created the parts to begin with.
You’d think an all-knowing creator would have the sense to realize that a bunch of apes are inevitably going to poke their bits into places where they fit, and if it feels good, they’re going to keep on doing it, LOL.
Michael, no problem; the majority of it was filler fluff, anyway. Thanks for stepping in.
Ryan said “The connection between sin and suffering is not 1-to-1, and it is certainly not an instantaneous reaction between cause and effect. Some of the suffering in this world is because of ancient sins (the most famous being the original rebellion against God). Sometimes a sin’s consequences affect us here in this world, other sins affect us in eternity. We are “born into sin.” It’s a part of us the moment we are conceived. Our hearts are dark from the first decisions we make.”.
LOL, I love that waffling! The “connection” most certainly isn’t one to one because no such connection exists anywhere except in your willfully blind mind.
Ryan said “Time will tell the truth. It will make obvious the connection between sin and death. There is no such thing as “getting away with murder,” only delaying the consequences.”.
You’ve had thousands of years to demonstrate this supposed truth and have utterly failed to do so, because there is no connection between sin and suffering or death. OJ Simpson proved you can get away with murder, there have been and will be no consequences for him, he’ll continue to live a life of luxury and ease until the day he dies and that is the end of him just like the day you die will be the end for you.
Priya, I don’t think you are lying when you say how happy you are. I do know that there is a deeper level of joy that makes being “happy” seem like a cheap trinket.”.
You have no idea of the level of happiness I experience, what part of “I often literally jump for joy” do you not understand? I know a level of happiness and joy that its clear you can only fantasize about. That you characterize the one life you have as trivial and hope for death is proof that you are utterly disatisfied with the only life you will ever have. The real tragedy is that rather than simply denying yourself happiness you seek to deny others happiness and to fill them with the emptiness and hopelessness that pervaids your thoughts.
Ryan said “And I also know that your happiness will end if it is based on the wrong foundations.”.
It takes a special kind of arrogance to claim to know the future of someone you’ve never met – you know no such thing. Eventually I’ll get old and may become sick and then my happiness may fade, but I’ll have lived a long joyous life full of love and deep emotional connection that you’ve obviously never experienced, a truth that clearly eats away at you and brings you to gay blogs to try to deprive others of happiness because you think having company in your misery will alleviate it.
Ryan said “I pray that this will happen in time for you to see how empty the pleasures of the flesh are.”.
That one statement sums up the evil that motivates you and how willfully blind you are to the truth about LGBTs. You put up this facade of caring for us, but when your mouth overflows you can’t help but let the truth slip – you want to see us unhappy, it brings you joy to think of us being miserable, your main goal in life is to deprive LGBTs of the happiness that so obviously eludes you.
Your peddling of anti-LGBT stereotypes betrays your ignorance and malevolence. My happiness doesn’t come from “pleasures of the flesh”, sex is not a significant part of our relationship. My joy comes from a deep emotional connection to the most compassionate, warmest, and caring man on the planet. My joy comes from a deep love and companionship you can’t begin to understand because you’ve never experienced anything like it and never will given your focus on depriving others of happiness due to your own empty life full of yearning for a heaven that doesn’t exist and that you will never experience.
Go, waste your life pineing for a reprieving afterlife that will never happen, but have the decency to leave others to enjoy the only life we’ll all ever have.
Priya– i’m pretty sure OJ is in jail right now, and hardly living a life of luxury.
As for the rest of whatyou wrote– right on.
Ryan’s deeper level of happiness is more likely a state of not being in the deeply held fear that he is going ot burn in hlel for ever, becuase he isn’t– at the moment– transgressing.
John calvin is alive and welll and lviing right insdie Ryan’s brain.
Yeecccccccccccccch
Oh, yes Ben, I completely forgot about that. But that’s for another crime, he literally did get away with muder.
I suspect that Ryan actually isn’t all that miserable, and he may be much happier and more at peace with his life than he once was before embracing religion. The problem is he cannot envision that anyone who hasn’t followed his path could possibly find the same joy, peace and love that he finds now in his god experience. The problem with heterosexuals in general is that they really enjoy being who they are and they cannot fathom how GLBT people could possibly enjoy who we are: it is off their radar screen. Many christians like Ryan cannot understand how a buddhist, a muslim, a jew or an atheist could possibly have as rich or as wonderful life experience as theirs is to them. I think the only cure for them (to paraphrase CS Lewis) is to get them out to travel!
I have a theory about super religious people, such as Ryan, with all their expressions of absolute certainty: I don’t think their certainty is all that absolute.
I think they have, at least, occasional doubts, and it terrifies them. They are so terrified that their “loving” God will condemn them to Hell for having doubts, that they desperately try to deny and repress those doubts. And one way they do that is by speaking in absolute certain terms in conversations with others. I’ve watched Christians talking among themselves on TV, and I sense they are trying to impress each other (in addition to the audience) with their certainty.
I also think the presence of doubts may be part of the reason they are so focused on converting others to their beliefs. Their confidence is bolstered when others believe as they do. And of course, the rise in the number of atheists is terrifying. They have just enough doubt to be terrified, but not enough doubt to shed their beliefs.
It’s all about desperately trying to beat down those awful recurring nagging doubts so that their God won’t notice, and condemn them to Hell. But I’m here to tell them that if someone as ordinary is myself can notice, then a God is certainly smart enough to notice. So my advice to them is: Don’t bother packing any heavy clothes.
Paul Douglas, I think you’re right. One commonality is that they seem to lack empathy with people who are even slightly different than themselves. Everything is always all about them. Might another clue be a higher incidence of Narcissistic Personality Disorder than among the general public?
Richard, I think God knows all about doubts among his people and is sympathetic, not hostile. The Scripture is very open about that possibility. Sarah laughed at God’s promise, Jacob wrestled with God. One man said directly to Jesus ” I believe.. help my unbelief!”. Thomas doubted. At the assention of Christ it was reported in Acts that even some of the disciples “doubted”.
richard– of course.
Scratch a real homophobe and you will probably find a real fag.
Scratch a real “I got the Truth”-er and you will probably find Boxcar-o’-doubts.
When you don’t live on the planet of Reality, you live on the planet of Whatever You Want to Make Up.
and that’s terrifying.
Paul said “I suspect that Ryan actually isn’t all that miserable, and he may be much happier and more at peace with his life than he once was before embracing religion.”.
Its highly unlikely that there was ever a time in Ryan’s life where he didn’t embrace religion. The vast majority of people are indoctrinated into religion when they are children and too young to think objectively about whether or not its true so they just accept it as fact and because they never reasoned themselves into such a belief its pretty tough to reason them out of it.
Paul said “The problem is he cannot envision that anyone who hasn’t followed his path could possibly find the same joy, peace and love that he finds now in his god experience.”.
That’s clearly not the case here. Obviously you missed the part of his post where he longed for my happiness to end and the parts where he trivialized life. These are not the actions of a happy person, or one that wants others to be happy, these are the actions of someone who regrets life, can’t wait to get out of it, and who is deeply envious of the happiness of others. A happy person has better things to do than to harangue LGBTs and hope they’ll become miserable.
Richard said “They are so terrified that their “loving” God will condemn them to Hell for having doubts, that they desperately try to deny and repress those doubts. And one way they do that is by speaking in absolute certain terms in conversations with others.”
I think you’re right. The phrasing of beliefs as an absolute certainty is a mechanism to reassure themselves that their capricious god will reward rather than eternally punish them. If others don’t accept their beliefs they feel threatened and driven to convert them all the more.
Bob said “I think God knows all about doubts among his people and is sympathetic, not hostile.”.
Right, a god who creates adam and eve without the knowledge of right and wrong who then punishes them for eating the apple from the tree of knowledge is pretty sympathetic. A god who believes all generations inherit their wrondoings is pretty sympathetic. A god who allows his existence and preferred religion to be doubtful who eternally tortures people for the innocent act of not believing is not at all hostile, he’s very sympathetic.
Priya, I am curious, setting aside any specific beliefs, does the idea of a Supreme Being, a Creator and Arbiter of justice a concept that truly bothers you? If it turned out to be true would you be relieved or terrified?
No Bob, I’d have no problem with a true arbiter of justice, but your bible describes an immoral tyrant. Yes, if the most despicable character in all of fiction turned out to be real I’d be terrified.
Priya, then if you only look at Jesus as described in the four Gospels, what do you see?
Bob
I’ll answer your question to Priya, if I may: A mystic, like a Sufi.
Warwick, an interesting point of view.
:)
Thanks!
You want to know what I see Bob? I see a sadistic author who took the already malevolent Jewish god made him several orders of magnitude more evil through the introduction of the idea of hell. The god of Judaism may have been a tyrant, he may have tortured and killed you, but once you were dead he was done with you. The Christian god isn’t content with finite torture and murder, he wants to torture people for an eternity. When you compare the major features of the abrahamic religions, given that they share the concept of hell, Islam and Christianity have far more in common with each other than either does with Judaism – Judeo-Christian indeed…the reality is its actually Islamic-christian values
Priya, so, you see Jesus in the NT as an invention of the writers, not a historical person who lived?
Bob, did you really think I’d see Jesus as anything other than a fictional character?
I would guess that there IS a mystic at the core of these stories who actually lived -but the facts will always be obscured by the natural distortions of Time (2000+yrs!!), fanatical beliefs, passionately held (unexamined mythically-charged doctrines are routinely a part of a human-being’s Ego’s structural support; people will lay down their lives for this stuff), and the politics that are connected to them (just look at the role of the Emperor Constantine, for example).
You can get some pithy quotes out of these texts if you want to – but, as usual, it would be wise to subject each one to further careful, practical testing.
Memes tend to make good servants – but bad masters.
Priya, If you say Jesus is a fictional character, do you say that the man Jesus never existed at all or that a first century preacher with a small following existed and was executed on a cross but his followers embellished (fictionalized) the accounts they wrote down.
In either case, where do the fictinal accounts end?
For example, were Polycarp (ca. 69 – ca. 155), Bishop of Smyrna, Ignatius of Antioch both students of John the Apostle, also fictional characters? Would you assert that thier written accounts were manurfactured?
Bob, there are no extra biblical accounts of a character named Jesus. About 40 historians from around that time recorded huge volumes of happenings about the most minor of characters yet no mention of Jesus. This for a man that supposedly drew large crowds and was a major thorn in the side of the authorities is unthinkable. Take away the forged account of Josephus and the account of Tacitus where he simply repeated what Christians had told him there is no evidence whatsoever that the Jesus character existed and it is inconceivable that if he had all the historians from around his time would have failed to notice.
I’ve never heard of Polycarp or Ignatius so I have no comment on whether or not they were ficitional characters.
Priya, I am not surprised you hold that the Josephus reference was forged. But what defines an “extra-biblical” account? The Bible as we know it as “one” book is not so. The New Testament is a collection of books and letters written by several authors over time which were compiled. Many other gospels and letters (a very large number) were circulated that were not ultimately considered Scripture but refer to Jesus and other figures
(such as the Gospel of Thomas). So, by modern standards,
the existence of several letters from different authors might be considered evidence of Jesus existence. The fact that some were compiled together should not discount the normal standards of multiple sources and the fact that many other gospels and letters exist that refer to Jesus
and his followers exist as well as the volumous non-canonical writings of the early church fathers.
Also, it is not “inconceivable” that he would have not been noticed if you consider the nature of his “fame” which would have been virtually unoticed outside of Jewish circles and a handful of Roman authorities who merely regarded him as a problem to get rid of, just another criminal. Obviously his fame grew over time.
Paul writes in his letters that there were Christians serving in the Emporer’s palace itself.
Polycarp and many others were second and third generation Christian leaders who had physical connection with the original Apostles or their disciples. Many were martyred for thier beliefs. So it seem to me there is a problem denying the existence of a historical Jesus (quite apart from any religious claims) in that one has to fumble around to explain the start and growth of a major movement in which virtually all the early leaders and many followers willingly died for thier Namesake.
Priya– strictly speaking, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I actually believe that Jesus existed, but he didn’t have a publicist until Paul, who found very little that Jesus had to say that he, Paul, didn’t feel free to contradict.
Jesus said don’t judge. Paul gave his list of people he felt fine about judging.
Jesus said pray in private. Paul said not if oyu want you pastor ot have a job.
Jesus said no divorce. Paul was able to find an exception.
I know there are a lot ofo ther examples.
And bob, how contemporary were these other sourceS? That becomes the real question. the gospels weren’t written until at least 40 years after Jesus’s death. All of the other gospels have similar problematric dating in a world where records were not necessary meticulous, and credulity was as cheap as playing telephone.
We have a fair number of contemporary sources giving us details of the life of Zeus. Who believes in Zeus these days?
LOL, Bob, the old “no one would willingly die for it if it wasn’t true” excuse.
If you believe that then all the other religions must be true as well because all manner of people have willingly died for those religions. Of course you have no problem acknowledgeing that in those cases people willingly died for false religions and that being the case logic dictates that you acknowledge that there’s no reason the christian religion can’t be false and many people chose to die for it regardless.
There are several reasons why its obvious the Josephus account was forged:
As Josepheus was born in 37 CE he couldn’t have been a contemporary and eyewitness of Jesus. More problematic for the supposed account of Jesus by Josepheus is that Josepheus lived and died as a Jew. That he would claim Jesus was the Messiah and never have converted to Christianity simply isn’t believable. 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, 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.
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. 13 The question can be laid to rest by noting that as late as the sixteenth century, according to Rylands, a scholar named Vossius had a manuscript of Josephus from which the passage was wanting.”
As to the idea that Jesus wasn’t known outside of Jewish circles, that isn’t at all credible. One who spoke drawing huge crowds, cured the sick, performed miracles, saw the dead walking around simply could not have escaped notice of the historians around his time if it were in anyway true. These historians recorded all manner of mundane and repetitive occurrances, wrote at length about the most minor of figures, it simply isn’t believable that a man like Jesus could have existed and none of them noticed.
Ben, I’m well familiar with the “absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence” idea. This is certainly true where no one has looked for evidence of a thing or phenomena, but becomes less true the more people have searched for such evidence and failed to find it. To illustrate, there is no evidence of Unicorns on the planet but few scientists would agree its reasonable to assume they might exist because “absence of evidence is not evidence of absense”.
People have gone to tremendous lengths to find evidence of a historical Jesus and there is simply no such evidence outside of the christian writings. Once again the mass of historians who are listed further down the page in this link:
http://www.atheists.org/Did_Jesus_Exist%3F
Would not have missed recording such a person if they actually existed. This list includes many Jewish historians so that further deflates Bob’s balloon of “he wasn’t known outside of Jewish circles”.
“Many were martyred for thier beliefs. So it seem to me there is a problem denying the existence of a historical Jesus (quite apart from any religious claims) in that one has to fumble around to explain the start and growth of a major movement in which virtually all the early leaders and many followers willingly died for thier Namesake.”
Umm… I’m pretty sure a lot of muslims have been willingly dying for their beliefs for a while now. It’s not much of a stretch of logic to see that if you convince people that it’s holy to martyr themselves for their faith, they’re going to be willing to do it. Especially since Christianity seems to be built predominantly around the story of a dude being tortured to death.
Back in 97, perhaps before Bob’s time, there was a cult that believed ancient extraterrestrial astronauts had put humans on earth and that the earth was now about to be recycled. The extraterrestrials were then going to take a select few from the earth as supreme beings if that few would give up all their earthly attatchments (including their bodies). They believed a spaceship was following behind comet Halebop and if they committed suicide they’d be whisked away to the spaceship and live a life of glory with the extraterrestrials. So they all killed themselves. According to Bob they wouldn’t have killed themselves if this wasn’t true – obviously they had iron-clad proof of the truth of their religion.
There was Jonestown, too.
I have a question which I hope is not too far off on a tangent: If prayer really worked, wouldn’t all the health insurance companies have Prayer Departments where the employees would pray all day for the people they insure? Surely the cost of employing professional pray-ers would be much less than traditional medical care.
Richard, someone out there agrees with you:
http://www.xkcd.com/808/
“LOL, Bob, the old “no one would willingly die for it if it wasn’t true” excuse.”
Priya, they did die for what they believed to be true and I offered that just as evidence that they were sufficiently convinced of the historicity of Jesus, not as proof they were about all aspects of Jesus or that their faith was even right. I think it is important to consider the strength of belief as one factor among others when asking if there was anything at all to the existence of Jesus which is what we were discussing.
You brought up Hale-Bopp “According to Bob they wouldn’t have killed themselves if this wasn’t true – obviously they had iron-clad proof of the truth of their religion.”
Of course I never said that was proof I did say one has to explain it meaning one can’t just dismiss such comminment with a wave of the hand. Of course not all commitments are equal. As for the Hale-Bopp cult, there are three things, 1) there actually is a Hale-Bopp comet, 2) scientists do hold that extra-terrestrial life is both possible and likely and 3) there are a few credible accounts of UFO sightings by military and civilian pilots that are suggestive. And yet the cult went tragically off the deep end. My point is that even an obviously flawed belief system that led to a tragic mass suicide had some real historical underpinning to it.
“As Josepheus was born in 37 CE he couldn’t have been a contemporary and eyewitness of Jesus. More problematic for the supposed account of Jesus by Josepheus is that Josepheus lived and died as a Jew. That he would claim Jesus was the Messiah and never have converted to Christianity simply isn’t believable. ”
Regarding Josepheus, being born in the year 37 means he was able to personally interview many people who were contemporaries of Jesus if he so chose to before they died. I had never thought he claimed Jesus was *the* or *his* Messiah but just that some Jews recognized him as such. There is a “speculative reconstructeion” text by Vermes removes what some believe are later Christian edits that goes as this:
“About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man…For he was one who performed paradoxical deeds and was the teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews [and many Greeks?]. He was [called] the Christ. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among 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…And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.”
But even is we totally discount this account, there are other references to both James, the brother of Jesus, and John the Baptist in Josepheus’s writing which are strongly
considered reliable by most scholars.
However, the case for a historical Jesus does not rest on Josepheus. It seems highly improbably to me that such a movement could have started over a fictional person. I am not claiming that makes Christianity *true* but that it highly suggests some historical basis such as a real person named Jesus that it is based on. I am not a Muslim but I hold that it’s founder was a historical person. I am not a Buddhist but I accept that there was a person called the Buddha.
Thanks for the interesting discussion.
Richard,
Prayer simply is talking to God which anyone can do. Is God obligated to answer prayers according to our requests?
No. It has to be in accordance with His will and purposes for our lives and not at our dictates. He does promise to forgive us if we ask. Scripture says God wants us to pray often and as C.S. Lewis said it really is more about changing us than some magical power to get what we want. I think God answers every prayer but sometimes the answer is “wait” or even “no”. The question is are we really listening?
Bob said “As for the Hale-Bopp cult, there are three things, 1) there actually is a Hale-Bopp comet, 2) scientists do hold that extra-terrestrial life is both possible and likely and 3) there are a few credible accounts of UFO sightings by military and civilian pilots that are suggestive. And yet the cult went tragically off the deep end. My point is that even an obviously flawed belief system that led to a tragic mass suicide had some real historical underpinning to it.”.
Nonsenses Bob. None of those “underpin” the belief that ancient aliens had planted humans on earth, had returned to recycle the planet and collect exceptional humans, and were following coment Halebop in a spaceship. Those were preposterous beliefs with no foudation in fact and yet people willingly died for them because they were wrongly convinced they were true. Those are no more “historical underpinnings” for those beliefs than the facts that gold exists, rainbows exist, there were many years ago what were considered credible sightings of leprechauns are historical underpinnings for the belief that leprechauns and a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow were true.
You said those beliefs about the halebop comet were an “obviously flawed belief system” so clearly you don’t believe comet halebops existence, people believing aliens exist, and “credible” ufo sightings are any evidence whatsoever that those beliefs were true. The same is true for your beliefs, the fact that men exist, there were what were believed to be credible sightings of magic, and that people die is in no way a “historical underpinning” to the belief that a man called Jesus arose from the dead.
Bob said “I think it is important to consider the strength of belief as one factor among others when asking if there was anything at all to the existence of Jesus which is what we were discussing.”.
Strength of belief is not any evidence whatsoever that something existed or happened. David Koresh said he was the messiah and people willingly died for him. People have willingly died for all manner of false and often absurd beliefs over the millenia You know the 9/11 hijackers had never seen Mohammed and yet they believed strongly enough to willingly die for their religion and you have no problem dismissing their committment with a wave of your hand, you have no problem believing they died for a lie despite having beliefs just as strong as any Christian ever had.
Bob said “Regarding Josepheus, being born in the year 37 means he was able to personally interview many people who were contemporaries of Jesus if he so chose to before they died.”.
Not only is there no evidence that he did so, even if he had that is legally hearsay and is not considered evidence in any honest judicial system
Bob said “I had never thought he claimed Jesus was *the* or *his* Messiah but just that some Jews recognized him as such.”.
The forged passage in Josephus says “He was the Messiah” – check the link I posted. It is simply inconceivable that Josephus would write that and then remain a Jew all his life.
Bob said “There is a “speculative reconstructeion” text by Vermes removes what some believe are later Christian edits that goes as this:”.
Oh my god, I can’t believe you’re actually going to try to pull that BS. Clearly a “speculative reconstruction” is in no way, shape, or form proof of anything Josephus did or did not write.
Bob said “But even is we totally discount this account,”.
What do you mean “if we totally discount this account”?! Of course we totally discount it! It was made up!
Bob said “there are other references to both James, the brother of Jesus, and John the Baptist in Josepheus’s writing which are strongly
considered reliable by most scholars.”.
Uh-huh, I just read on a christian web site that Josephus’s writings are considered reliable by most scholars after the apparent christian additions are removed. Further, the Encyclopedia Britiannica (a respected authority) states that the Christian copiests distorted the truth by inserting the Jesus references. You’re not at all believable here, you wishful thinking does not make it true.
Once again, Josephus could not have been an eye-wittness to the existence of either James, or John the baptist. There is also reason to believe that there actually was a James, James the Just he may have been referring to. Given the clearly forged passage above it and the fact that Josephus’s work was only preserved by christian copyists it is almost certainly the case that christians added “Brother of Jesus” – and for good measure “who was called Christ.” to the reference to James.
Once again, given that the reference to “the messiah” is obviously awkwardly inserted and clearly a forgery it is then impossible to make the case that the reference to John the Baptist is authentic.
Josephus wrote chapter upon chapter about the most insignificant people and events. The Jesus testimony consists of four sentences. Why would Josephus’ Christ (the Jewish Messiah) deserve only four sentences? Once again, the evidence that this is a forgery is considerable.
Josephus makes no reference to: the celebration of Pentecost in Jerusalem when allegedly devote Jews of every nation gathered and all received the Holy Spirit evidenced by speaking in new tongues; a Jewish fisherman Peter who is head apostle of the new church; a fellow pharisee named Saul of Tarsus who becomes the apostle Paul, or of the church’s alleged explosive growth throughout Palestine, Alexandria, Greece, or Josephus’ city of residence Rome. Peter and Paul’s alleged martyrdoms in Rome about 60 CE is unknown to Josephus. It bears noting that Christian apologists so determined to rely on the veracity of Josephus’ Jesus testimony excuse his later oversights.
Eusebius (265-339 CE), acknowledged as “Father of Church History” was the Emperor Constantine’s overseer of doctrine. Eusebius’ states in his Evangelical Demonstration, “Certainly the attestations I have already produced concerning our Savior may be sufficient. However, it may not be amiss, if, over and above, we make use of Josephus the Jew for a further witness.” (Book III., p.124) Eusebius’ concern for historical truth is demonstrated in his The Preparation of the Gospel published by Baker House (a Christian publisher) on page 619 “it will be necessary sometimes to use falsehood as a remedy for the benefit of those who require such treatment”.
Eusebius, one of the most influential Christians in church history, condoned fraud as a tool to promote Christianity! The probability of Constantine’s Christianity being a product of fraud is directly related to the desperate need of evidence to support a historical Jesus. Without Josephus’ alleged “Jesus Testimony” there is no first century non-Christian confirmation of a historical Jesus, a devastating blow to the historicity of the Jesus story.
Bob said “However, the case for a historical Jesus does not rest on Josepheus. It seems highly improbably to me that such a movement could have started over a fictional person. I am not claiming that makes Christianity *true* but that it highly suggests some historical basis such as a real person named Jesus that it is based on. I am not a Muslim but I hold that it’s founder was a historical person. I am not a Buddhist but I accept that there was a person called the Buddha.”
Christians often claim 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 at its inception. A similar argument could be made, however, in the case of the earlier rapid spread of Mithraism. Yet no Christians argue that this supports the idea of an historical Mithra.
You believe there was a Mohammed, and a Buddha, but what about Vishnu or Gonesh from Hinduism? It is just as improbable (as in not at all) that such a movement could have started if there were not really a Gonesh or Vishnu.
Mohammed and Buddha may have been the people who recorded their religion’s beliefs first just as some unknown author was the first to record Christian beliefs. It is not at all controversial that such people existed, but that is in no way proof that the beliefs they recorded were true or that the belief in yet one of hundreds, or thousands of claimed gods such as Jesus is true.
For Mohammed in particular, much like a historical Jesus, there isn’t any historical evidence from the time he was said to live that shows he did indeed exist. The earliest biography, of which no copies survive, dated from roughly a century after the generally accepted year of his death, 632, and is known only by references to it in much later texts. The non-Islamic scholars that say he existed do so out of political correctness/fear of the rath of Muslims.
In fact you’re typical of such believers. You believe Mohammed and Buddha existed, but you don’t have any evidence that supports this belief. You believe merely because you want to and even then, your beliefs are highly selective. You don’t, for example, believe that Mohammed was god’s prophet and that he flew up to heaven on a white horse.
“Even the existence and role of the city of Mecca — the holiest city in Islam — is highly questionable. In traditional Islamic writings, Mecca is portrayed as a large, wealthy trading center full of activity and interchange. So why is there no mention anywhere in non-Muslim sources of a city called Mecca in the place where the current city of Mecca exists?
And if they really were “middleman” in long-distance trade routes, the traders and customers would have mentioned the city and its inhabitants — but we can find no such mentions. And the site of the current city of Mecca is not anywhere close to where trade routes passed. Caravans would have had to travel long out of their way to stop over at the current Mecca. It certainly didn’t serve as a place of sanctuary and pilgrimage, as is also often claimed.
Yet traditional and ancient Muslim sources all testify to the opposite of these findings. It is very unlikely that those sources are accurate in these vital details — and this means that we have to be very skeptical about their ability to provide accurate information in other areas as well.”
Jesus was a very common name 2000 years ago and Mohammad was a very common name 1400 years ago so there was certainly people at those times by those names. That, however is not in any way evidence that people substantially similar to the Christian and Islamic myths existed.
Priya writes “Uh-huh, I just read on a christian web site that Josephus’s writings are considered reliable by most scholars after the apparent christian additions are removed. Further, the Encyclopedia Britiannica (a respected authority) states that the Christian copiests distorted the truth by inserting the Jesus references. You’re not at all believable here, you wishful thinking does not make it true.”
But those apparent additions were specifically about the Jesus passage. The references to John and James are considered accurate according to scholars (at least as discussed on the WIki page). Even if they are false, as I said, the historicity of Jesus does not rest on Josepheus
in my view. And BTW, if Josepheus had directly quoted Mary or John or James or whoever else it would be of great historical importance.
Also, I would like to make the point that even if the Josepheus passage was doctored, the parts below which are in CAPS are the parts in dispute. The fact that it mentions the name Jesus is apparently not in dispute.
“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 wonders, A TEACHER OF SUCH MEN AS RECEIVE THE TRUTH WITH PLEASURE. He drew many after him BOTH OF THE JEWS AND THE GENTILES. HE WAS THE CHRIST. When Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among 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 THEN THOUSAND OTHER WONDERFUL THINGS ABOUT HIM, and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day” (Antiquities 18:63-64).”
The non-controversial part;
“Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, for he was a doer of wonders. He drew many after him. When Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day”
Also, Louis Feldman a famous Josephus scholar said that there is broad agreement that the James passage is authentic.
“You said those beliefs about the halebop comet were an “obviously flawed belief system” so clearly you don’t believe comet halebops existence,”
Since I wrote “there actually is a Hale-Bopp comet” your comment above makes no sense. It really is proper to call it Hale-Bopp since it was co-discovered by amateur astronomers Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp. My point was that the comet Hale-Bopp really exists, likewise a case can be made that the historical man Jesus existed.
If you are going to decide apriori that any historical witness that believed or was sympathetic to Jesus must be discounted as unreliable and biased as well as anyone closely connected to any movement, you would have to throw out a lot of human history. The point is not to throw out such testimony but to weigh it extract out the historical truth.
Priya writes “You believe there was a Mohammed, and a Buddha, but what about Vishnu or Gonesh from Hinduism? It is just as improbable (as in not at all) that such a movement could have started if there were not really a Gonesh or Vishnu.”
These are not questions of probability and I think you know that. They are questions of history and each case is unique. I don’t know a lot about Vishnu or Gonesh except they were considered gods and Vishnu supposedly had an avatar in Krishna which I think some Hindu’s think was a real person but the whole culture and the thought processes would have to be considered to understand how such a system developed. But there was some kind of a cultural history or phenomonon that led to such a belief system. It goes back so far and involved eons of oral history so it may never be known. But Jesus is almost recent by comparison.
The fact is that much of what we know about antiquity and some historical figures, such as certain famous Greek writers come from a few lines or quotes from later writers yet we don’t dispute their existence.
Bob said “The references to John and James are considered accurate according to scholars.”.
That quite simply is a lie. As I pointed out, the Encyclopedia Britannica states that the Christian copiests distorted the truth by inserting the Jesus references which includes the James reference and given the strong evidence that those were forged there is no reason to believe the John the Baptist reference wasn’t forged as well.
Bob said “Also, I would like to make the point that even if the Josepheus passage was doctored, the parts below which are in CAPS are the parts in dispute. The fact that it mentions the name Jesus is apparently not in dispute.”.
No, THE ENTIRE PARAGRAPH IS IN DISPUTE AND CLEARLY A FORGERY. Josephus had previously been talking about awful things Pilate had done to the Jews in general, the paragraph before and after the Jesus reference describe Romans killing Jews. The paragraph following the Jesus testimony begins “About the same time another sad calamity put the Jews in disorder”. Would “another sad calamity” refer to the appearing of the “doer of wonderful works” or Romans killing Jews? Such a negative statement is clearly out of context and indicative of a later insertion. The sentence “another sad calamity put the Jews in disorder” only makes sense in the text if it originally immediately followed the description of the awful things Pilate had done to Jews in general – the whole paragraph was obviously and conspicuously inserted in the text. Given that no reference was made to that paragraph by early church apoligists even would have certainly used it if they’d have had it and that they refered to the surrounding Josephus text and and the paragraph doesn’t appear until Eusebius’ time and Eusebius condoned lying to promote Christianity, its obviously a forgery. And given that obvious forgery there is no credibility to the later references to James or John the Baptist.
Bob said “Also, Louis Feldman a famous Josephus scholar said that there is broad agreement that the James passage is authentic.”.
Apart from the fact that he’s a Christian apologist and the Encyclopedia Brittanica says the opposite, HE SAID NO SUCH THING. He said the exact opposite:
“It’s very interesting that there is one other account which, if it is authentic, does deal with the crucifixion. And that is by the Jewish historian Josephus. The question is whether Josephus really wrote it. And I’ve written about that, and I’ve come to the conclusion that he couldn’t have written it, certainly in the form that we have it, because Origen, the Christian church father, at one point says that Josephus didn’t recognize that Jesus was the Christos.
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2009/02/louis-feldman-on-jesus-and-truthfulness_5276.html
Bob said “Since I wrote “there actually is a Hale-Bopp comet” your comment above makes no sense.”.
I’m sorry, that sentence was confusing and that was not what I intended to say. Let me rephrase it:
You said the beliefs of the Heaven’s Gate cult and halebop comet were an “obviously flawed belief system” but that statement contradicts your claim that certain facts (comet halebops existence, people believing aliens exist, and “credible” ufo sightings) are evidence that the cults beliefs were true (suggestive real historical underpinnings).
Bob said “If you are going to decide apriori that any historical witness that believed or was sympathetic to Jesus must be discounted as unreliable and biased as well as anyone closely connected to any movement, you would have to throw out a lot of human history. The point is not to throw out such testimony but to weigh it extract out the historical truth.”.
You don’t HAVE any eye witness accounts of Jesus and you have NO non-christian references to Jesus from around his time. You have roughly 40 historians (jewish and otherwise) from around the time of Jesus who recorded at great length all manner of mundane events, minor criminals and minor officials and yet somehow never noticed a figure who did miracles, claimed he was the king of the Jews, was a major thorn in the side of the authorities and drew huge crowds to his speechs. That such a figure would have existed and been ignored by all those historians simply isn’t credible.