After researching my way out of Mormonism, I recently read a book entitled "Zealot," by Reza Aslan. Without going into details, the book shows that Jesus was just one of many itinerant preachers gathering disciples and focusing on the overthrow of the Roman occupation. It seems that all of them eventually met the same fate- crucifixion. There were many that preceded Jesus and many that followed.

This and many other issues satisfied a conclusion in my mind that Christianity is a myth. If so, Mormonism must also be a myth. I could have saved a lot of time if I had focused on Christianity at the start- 'chop off the head and tail stops wagging.'

after I realized the Mormonism what a hoax all religion fell into the same catagory.

When my whole belief system came crashing down I was devastated for a bit.

I realized why so many are so protective of their belief system. It is emotionally scarry to realize you've been so wrong for so long and most people don't want to see or feel that.

Out of curiosity, which itinerant preacher was Jesus? Was it Christus as referred to by Tacitus or was it someone else?

Considering Tacitus was born decades after Jesus was allegedly crucified, and thousands of miles away, in a culture marked by superstition and rumor, and wrote his record in a time when Christianity and all of its legends had already been established and promulgated, I don't think we can say with much confidence that Tacitus' reference to "Christus" was anything more than what the Christians were already saying it was.

Kimball, Tacitus spoke of Roman history, including Nero and Pilate, who he specifically named as the one who handed down the sentence on Christus. I'm agnostic about this, but I think it would be unlikely that a Roman historian would take Christian rumor about a Roman prefect as evidence of actual history. It seems to me that he would use Roman documents as his source for his historical claims.

But I don't know.

It's true, Christians might not have been the only source of rumors about Christ. The Annals may be our best source of information from the period compared to other historians, but it's still pretty questionable. Tacitus is like Hugh Nibley I think. He's a very smart historian, espcially compared to some of his contemporaries at BYU or in Salt Lake. You can glean a ton of incidental factual information from his writings regarding things that have nothing to do with mormonism, but careful analysis reveals that many of his facts are bogus, second-hand, or pulled out of the air.

If Tacitus had named his sources I might feel more comfortable, but historians usually didn't name their sources back then. That's because they probably based their information more on rumor and popular perception. If the Christians had been coming across the sea talking about their founder who was killed 50 years ago, and had been spreading the word around town for the next 50 years, someone like Tacitus would probably write something exactly like what he did end up writing.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/2013 01:34PM by kimball.

I have heard the idea that Jesus was an itinerant preacher before, and that there were lots of such preachers at the time, for which there is extra-biblical evidence. Yet there doesn't seem to be any extra biblical evidence that Jesus was one of the preachers. But we wouldn't expect there to be any extra biblical evidence for Jesus. Yet there is evidence for the other preachers. Therefore I am very confused about what the real source of the idea is.

The bible describes a miracle worker, not an itinerant preacher. If you selectively remove the miracles from the bible then you are left with something resembling an itinerant preacher. If you selectively remove the name Jesus and the time of his birth and death then you could link Jesus to one of the other itinerant preachers for whom there is extra biblical evidence. How do you know where to draw the line with which bits of the bible to keep and which to throw out?

It seems to me that you can keep much of the info from the bible if you assume that Jesus was the same person as Christus (as described by Tacitus), who was crucified by Pontius Pilate and who led a sect known as Chrestians who were blamed for the fire in Rome.

...moved to the intended location...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/2013 01:46PM by The Invisible Green Potato.

Me too. Some days I'm athiest and some days I'm agnostic. Lately the athiest side has been winning. I lost the promise of a wonderful afterlife earned by sacraficing myself on the alter of self denial and repression. After 9 months out I'm starting to figure out who I am and what I want and gathering the assertiveness to change. Not gonna go to any church anytime soon, well, except an occuaional UU or Quaker meeting.

You can be both.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_atheism

Aside from the apparent man-made nature like you described, I can't see myself ever being part of any religion that supports the Old Testament, based on moral issues alone. A God that condones and even requires genocide, infanticide, murder, rape, bigotry, is no God of mine. If such a God made a heart-felt apology, and his followers admitted that he was wrong to do those things in the past, then I might learn to accept it. I don't see that happening with any of the Christian, Jewish, or Muslim sects though. And of course that would have to come after convincing me that it's not all bullshit to begin with, which is a pretty formidable hurdle by itself, considering the vast amounts of evidence in various forms.

Many Christians and even Jews agree, out of necessity, that the Old Testament is mostly allegorical. As a TBM, the Old Testament was another one of my "shelf items". How could Jesus, God of the Old Testament, be so different from Jesus of the New Testament?

I see. So God commanding the mass-murders of entire cities (named specifically) in Judea because they weren't descended from the right family was okay because it never actually happened - it's just symbolic. I just hope I'm not supposed to try to find something positive in that symbolism.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/2013 01:16PM by kimball.

Not exactly.

We know through DNA that the Book of Mormon people never existed.

BUT there actually is a Jerusalem and a man named Christ undoubtedly existed.

However, whether or not you believe in any supposed Christian teachings is entire up to you.

Yes, there is a Jerusalem, but there is no physical evidence that stands up to scientific scrutiny that Jesus ever lived or died. The only evidence that exists is hearsay evidence, which is not conclusive.

There have been many discussions in this forum about this topic in the past where people have claimed there is evidence of Jesus, but have never been able to provide anything of substance to validate their claims.

Most scholars agree that he "probably" existed. Of course, there is no proof, and likely never will be. Many scholars that conceed that he probably lived don't agree that he was more than a man.

There is a North Pole and a man name Santa Clause undoubtedly existed.

I'm not sure that real places and names qualify as proof.

What do you mean, not exactly? OP is 100% correct in stating that "if Christianity isn't true, Mormonism isn't true." That isn't really disputable. What IS disputable is whether or not Christianity is true, but that has nothing to do with the conditional implication that the OP presents.

It doesn't seem that disputable to me.

to me, Application & presentation are the important 'only' issues:

Mormonism, by fear-guilt, & intimidation seeks mostly to enforce it's own rules / regulations.

Pure Christianity doesn't care about Snake Handling, the 'lost' ten tribes, or any of that other stuff, it's about Loving Relationships (Kindness, Honesty, respect, etc.); those are True Treasures of living day-to-day.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/2013 01:00PM by guynoirprivateeye.

It may well be the case, that the Jesus depicted in the
Christian scriptures is a composite made up from the actions
of several different, would-be Jewish messiahs of 2000 years
ago -- including, perhaps, even some popular teachers who
never claimed to be the expected Messiah.

On the other hand, it is even more likely that most of the
gospels' "Christ myth" came from very early disciples'
professions of what such a messianic figure would have done
or should have done. There may be very, very little preserved
sayings/actions of an actual Jesus the son of Mary.

Early Mormonism appears to have built upon this same old
would have/should have method of fabricating ancient history.
In Mormon teachings there have been seven dispensations of
the Everlasting Gospel, and in each one if them the doctrines
and results were more or less the same. With this idea in
mind, Joe Smith, Oliver Cowdery and other earliest Mormons
could add even more would have/should have pseudo-history
to the churchly scriptures. In this convoluted view of
things, even a knowingly made-up action/doctrine was valid
in Mormon scriptures and teachings, if it mirrored something
similar recorded for a previous dispensation.

None of this makes Christianity or Mormonism fully "false"
in all the actions and interactions of their members. Some
good things seem to crop up wherever human beings strive to
create workable societies. But, if the original Christian
passion narrative was a fabrication, then those texts'
"Jesus Christ" is also a fabrication (no matter whether
or not a guy named Jesus actually lived 2000 years ago).

And... If the gospels' "Jesus Christ" was a fabrication,
then no such being appeared to Joe Smith at Manchester,
nor to Joe and Sidney at Hiram, nor to Joe and Oliver
at Kirtland, nor to any any LDS "living prophet" who
professed such a Christophany while wandering through
the vacated rooms and hallways of the Salt Lake Temple.

If the Christ Myth were admitted to be just that -- a
fiction which conveys truths -- then it still might have
a worthwhile place in human endeavors. But very few
observant Christians will ever admit that -- and a Mormon
who voiced such a conclusion would be excommunicated.

Add up all that is FALSE -- thousands upon thousands of
things in modern Mormonism -- and its leaders will simply
shrug their collective shoulders and go on being its leaders.

UD

UD wrote "If the Christ Myth were admitted to be just that -- a
fiction which conveys truths -- then it still might have
a worthwhile place in human endeavors. But very few
observant Christians will ever admit that -- and a Mormon
who voiced such a conclusion would be excommunicated."


I agree with you. And I think it is fascinating that there is evidence that some "observant Christians" are coming Very close to this (yeah, they are still Theists, but it is Bare Bones Theism). I think this is what "Progressive Christianity" is?

There is book, "Rabbi Jesus", written by an Episcopal scholar, that definitely looks at the Christian story in this way (haven't read "Zealot" mentioned in OP but may take a look at it, it sounds similar). I think that Rabbi Jesus is strongest where it is placing them NT story in the context of the existing Judaism of the time. How the NT was a reaction to existing Judaism. The NT was principled dissent, an argument against superstitions/hierarchies/the entrenched institutions of the era. Of course they still retained superstitions, but they eliminated some institutionalized superstitions like animal sacrifice and ritual bathing, and put the emphasis in religion on more actual psychologically transformative universal Concepts rather than on useless, manipulative, hierarchically controlled Ritual. It was an improvement upon the religious status quo. That is where Rabbi Jesus is strong.

Also, the ELCA Lutherans teach the bible in historical context, ie, this was a very different, primitive world back then,(they have a particular phrase for their way of looking at the bible, can't remember right now). They take the bible as something dreamed up by pre-science people but that still has a beautiful useful philosophy if applied with modern intelligence...some of the concepts are still very relevant...and that also works well with modern democratic notions of personal autonomy, individual conscience, etc. I've posted this before, so apologies if I am beating a dead horse. I think it is so interesting:



The often cited “Christian Dogmatics” is a two volume text used in ELCA seminaries to teach doctrine to pastors. It represents the foundation and systematic approach to Scripture taught to ELCA pastors (and then held by those pastors and taught by those pastors to congregations).



“Today it is impossible to assume the historicity of the things recorded. What the biblical authors report is not accepted as a literal transcript of the factual events. Therefore, critical scholars inquire behind the text and attempt to reconstruct the real history that took place.”

(Christian Dogmatics vol. 1, pg 76.; Braaten, Jensen, Forde; 1984)



"It is finally for the sake of Christ alone that the church continues to regard the Bible as a book without equal in the history of human literature. For this reason the churches that claim the heritage of Lutheran and the Reformation still affirm the Bible as the Word of God. This is not meant in the fundamentalistic sense that everything in the Bible stands directly as the Word of God." (Ibid.)



"The role of the Bible in constructive theology is radically qualified today by historical consciousness. Luther believed that the literal meaning of Scripture is identical with its historical content; things happened exactly as they were written down. Today it is impossible to assume the literal historicity of all things recorded. What the biblical authors report is not accepted as a literal transcript of the factual course of events. Therefore critical scholars inquire behind the text and attempt to reconstruct the real history that took place." (Ibid., p. 76-77)



"The highly developed skills of historical research provide us with the best tools we have to ascertain what really happened in the past." (Ibid., p. 477)



"The primary interest of dogmatics is to interpret the virgin birth as a symbol and not as a freakish intervention in the course of nature." (Ibid., p. 546)



"Jesus himself, though he might have and quite possibly did reckon with a violent death at the hands of his adversaries, seems not to have understood or interpreted his own death as a sacrifice for others or ransom for sin. Such interpretation apparently came as the result of later reflection." (Ibid., vol. 2, p. 13) [ed. This “later reflection” is the idea that generations of Christians after Christ wrote the story about him to explain their faith in him. It is a denial that the text was actually written by the apostle]



"The overall result of Gospel criticism was shocking to those whose faith was dependent on the utter reliability of every word of Scripture, for the words and deeds of Jesus which the Gospels report were found to be intermingled with and modified by the beliefs of the early church. The question of who Jesus of Nazareth really was and what he accomplished became a matter of research and therefore in principle an open question always subject to continuing investigation. This research affect the christological dogma because it placed in question the traditional assertion of the divinity of Christ and the notion that a person’s relation to God is determined by what is believed about Jesus of Nazareth." (Ibid., vol. 1 p. 71)



"We must concede the possibility that miracles may have been attributed to people simply to enhance their status, that is, their special relationship to the gods. Each claim to truth must be carefully analyzed, and it should not be excluded a priori that some of the miracles attributed to Jesus may have no historical basis and serve only to emphasize his exceptional status. "

(Ibid., vol. 2 p 283)

Hey 2+2, it logically follows from your post that the bible should be taken out of the hands of the general population. If special training is required to understand the bible correctly then it would be misleading to put it in the hands of uneducated people. Have you heard of anyone wanting to go back to the pre-printing press days where only priests got to read the bible?

The Invisible Green Potato Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hey 2+2, it logically follows from your post that
> the bible should be taken out of the hands of the
> general population. If special training is
> required to understand the bible correctly then it
> would be misleading to put it in the hands of
> uneducated people. Have you heard of anyone
> wanting to go back to the pre-printing press days
> where only priests got to read the bible?


That has been tried before, and I don't suppose that the
results have ever been very commendable. The only thing
worse than banning the book, seems to be handing it out
to ignorant, superstitious, bigoted laymen, with no
oversight or supervision. Bad choices either way.

Most of my professors in theological seminary (way back in
the last century) were realistic about the probable ancient
history, the obvious absurdities found in scripture, etc.
They found Christianity, from their perspective, still a
worthwhile community and endeavor -- I did not, and we
parted ways eventually.

All the scholarship and erudite theologizing is interesting,
even fascinating and enlightening now and then, but you
cannot build a religion upon it. Education and experience
are required, in order to discern pearls of wisdom in myth;
it is not a reasonable task to set before the Christian
child, nor the mentally challenged, senile, traumatized, etc.
These folks cannot be expected to sit down and study the
scriptures, based upon the conclusions presented in the
peer-reviewed biblical studies literature.

The Greeks built up a religion based upon myth (or, at
least one communicated and depicted via mythology) but
it was an unsuccessful competitor against subsequent
Christianity (which co-opted and incorporated some of
the mythological elements, joined with an historical view
of human existence). But then the value of myth itself
was lost. Myth belongs to the cyclical, fanciful view of
existence and does not mix well with actual history.

If anybody here ever took the time to ponder Capt. Picard's
musings, in the Star Trek series, they may recall that the
good Captain's hobby was archeology and the uncovering of
ancient artifacts and lore, earthly and otherwise. He was
fond of quoting snippets from the Gilgamesh legend --
but not as history or as fact. It is about as close as that
series ever came to acknowledging the value of humanity's
past experience with myth and religion.

I'm not sure that we as a species will ever reach that
detached but insightful/respectful view of mythology.

UD

Such musing over Picard's musings accomplishes the same thing.

Invisible Tater:

Well, the Protestant model does advocate degreed clergy to head each congregation...I guess for that very reason. For those members who do wish to use their brains, they have on going adult education classes for any interested. Voluntary, of course. And they don't shy away from a historical approach, it's a two thousand year old text...definitely not to be taken literally, you pretty much have to take it in historical context or it won't make sense at all.

No one here comments on the point that matters most to me, which is,

I see the New Testament writers as very much like "ex-mormons". To me, that is like the most important, inspiring part of the historical story.

Don't you understand what things were like at the time? The Jewish temple was much like the mormons are now. The religion was completely obsessed with/focused around ritual cleansing and animal sacrifice, that is what they spent all the time arguing about, how to do it correctly, whether vessel water was pure if it was poured from a pure vessel to an impure vessel, did the impurity carry back up the stream? All this crap. So useless. (like the mormon temple stuff seems to me, sorry if that is offensive) And it had a hierarchical priestly structure and was also quite rigidly legalistic. It was superficial and left some members of society out in the cold.

The New Testament writers were talking about actual dynamic concepts: personal transformation, personal responsibility, inclusiveness, compassion, forgiveness,and on and on...Humans are inherently imperfect, and how do we deal with that, is what was being discussed. A more meaningful alternative to rigid rules and stupid rituals. You can't buy your way to worthiness and all that.

The same thing happened again in the Reformation, individuals taking a stand against the unhealthy entrenched institution of the day, making the ideas dynamic and meaningful again.

Whatever.

I think you guys are the ones not able to see the bible in the context of it's time or the essential messages in it. It is just not that difficult. I think you are missing the story because of your own biases/training/ confusion about Xty from Moism. Because it's (for better or worse) a part of the historical culture of mainstream western civilization, I think it's important to understand.

And importantly, mainstream, progressive Xtian churches are not coercively controlling. They allow for the autonomy of the individual. Why is that?

Again, I am not asking anyone here to be a prog Xtian. I am not one, but I don't have a problem with progressive X'ty because it doesn't use cult tactics.

And I am just flummoxed by the lumping together of organizations that use cult tactics and those that don't. That is huge to me and lumping them together without acknowledging that important point is sloppy argument, to me.


I've written a lot and you might expect me to respond if you reply to this...but I can't, cuz I'm heading out on a nice big adventure.

Just wanted to get a final $.02 in...So cheers, and I hope you have a beautiful weekend :)

I don't look at mormonism as being either true or untrue. Just like other religions, mormonism can lead one to Christ and to try to live a good life. However the unique things of mormonism are false and mormonism can and does do a lot of damage to individuals and families. In fact it can screw up your life even if it was the one and only.

I shed mormonism and its bizarre and unique so called "commandments". I shed its whitewashing, its control of information, and its false doctrines and prophets. However mormonism brought me to Christ and since leaving, I have been fascintated with my new discovery of Christianity.

I don't believe that mormonism is Christian. I feel it resembles more of a scribe and pharisee religion, and Jesus adamantly opposed the scribe and pharisees. It was ultimately the scribes and pharisees that had Jesus crucified, so you could consider a scribe and pharisee religion as being somewhat anti Christ.

There are many things to mention why I feel that mormonism isn't really Christian but I will mention one. Jesus seemed preoccupied that we love and help everyone, regardless. Mormons seem to love and help only other mormons or those interested in becoming mormon. The conditional love mentality of mormonism is extremely harmful to families, relationships and friends. In fact, mormon ideology and culture will be a constant wedge in your relationships. Your parents may only be proud of you as you make them look good by you doing mormon stuff. Your wife may look down on you and divorce you if you aren't 100% involved with mormon crap.

Mormons generally haven't been raised to develop a relationship to Jesus. Mormons worship the church, JS, the BofM, and the current prophet. Mormons don't worship Jesus, and the services aren't a "lets worship Jesus" experience. Since leaving and attending a community Christian church, I have found that others worship Jesus, and the services feel like a worship service.

Oh hardly, no more than Islam falls if Judaism does.

At best, Jesus was just another preacher whose cult following got out of hand. I personally believe, based on study, and unswayed by the opinions of the vast majority of Biblical scholars (who are a bit biased, since so many of them go into that field because of their Christianity) that Jesus was simply a composite myth, that had evolved from a series of earlier myths that were popular in that area. None of these myths were exact matches, unlike the claims of some of the more enthusiastic atheist, but there are still enough similarities that you can see where the early Christians stole their ideas. It works much the same way that other religion founders may imperfectly copy ideas from a book by some guy named Spalding, or make up visions that sound suspiciously like something out of a popular German book of fairy tales that was common around the time they grew up.

Mormonism seems to have lost the "Christian values" that other Christian religions have retained. Christians and mormons both deify Jesus, but I am not sure that means they can be lumped together. Jews, Christians, Muslims and mormons all deify "the god of abraham", but that doesn't make them all Jewish.

Doctrinally Joseph Smith plagiarised as much as he could from Christian faiths. It follows then that evidence against Christianity would also be evidence against mormonism. The reverse isn't as true. Evidence against the book of mormon, pearl of great price or doctrine and covenants does not apply to christian faiths.

... in a guy who walks on water, turns water into wine, comes back to life after being dead for a few days and so-on, that's fine.

Just please don't ever accuse me of being delusional.

Timothy

I'm just thinking of Monty Python's "Life of Brian" as a far more accurate portrayal of early christianity than the new testament.

Oh, the irony! I remember going to see it when it came out at the movies - I'm a die hard Python fan. My uber-TBM dad, quite literally, beat the crap out of me for daring to watch such a "bad, evil movie", which made it OK for him to assault a minor, because god was on his side. Apparantly.

The current image jesus christ to the current generation of christianity, appears to be nothing more than folkore. In the same way that Robin Hood, King Arthur, Homer etc etc may have had some basis in an actual individual, their exaggerated hero status is achieved by a series of ridiculous embellishments, fantastical story telling and fusion of different characters and individuals.

What is quite staggering is that a folk lore identity has spawned a massive, far reaching and vastly wealthy industry, that of christianity.

No need to look further than the Old Testament, really. Mormonism is refuted by realizing that Adam and Eve and the Tower of Babel are both ridiculous allegories or fantasies. No Adam and Eve means the temple narrative is wrong, and if the Tower of Babel is fantasy, no Jaredites. It's also very probable that Jesus was an archetype or melding of several stories, not a real person. In any event, his divinity was woven into the story long after his death. It's all a legend.

P.S... There isn't a God either, just thought I'd mention that.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/2013 10:57PM by rationalist01.