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I don't see why we have to have these debates. It did not literally, historically happen. Conundrum solved. It's a story that can still have religious, ethical, spiritual meaning. Aesop's Fables didn't literally happen either, they are still meaningful stories.
Even like Maus did not literally happen as written (the holocaust did happen, to be clear, but it happened to humans), the point is a level of abstraction to get at deeper truths.
Some people think everything literally happened but some people think they are literally married to Severus Snape. Nobody's getting through to those people, least of all with a Lemmy comment or a cartoon. Don't worry about them.
Because the Mythicism debate is important to have.
Scenario 1: there was a street preacher illiterate magician who operated for about six months and one day got an idea to attack Rome and Rome didn't care for that. The result was the world's first and second biggest religion.
Scenario 2: Paul took the James con and spent about 40 years working on it. Improving it. Make sure it brought in the crowds. The result was very interesting stories that involved the whole family in an experience and it was that that ended up taking over the world.
Frankly the first scenario is pretty scary. That crazy guy with the cardboard sign saying the end is near? All it takes is him to get shot by the cops and civilization will be in ruins 300 years later. I am much more inclined to believe that the entire practice of baptism, communion, singing together, waiting for Holy Spirit to speak through you, demon casting out and the plot skeleton of Mark came from a determined guy who ruthlessly not only stole from the best but was willing to be a workaholic with his material.
So yeah it does matter. All humans on earth are shaped by these events. If we are such that a person with no original ideas can still win we are in a lot more danger than if we lost to a person who had a new idea every Sunday.
Even if the biblical Jesus was a real guy who said literally everything ascribed to him he would have still been hundreds of years behind the thinking of the Empire.
There are 100000 of these happening every year. Every kind of outlet is working on squeezing the fuck out of events like that. You can drop a pin on the ground and the news will try to make the world out of it. Constantly trying to jumpstart some bullshit.
Jesus and "his followers" are more akin to an early psychedelic/hippie movement with all the ideas that came with it. They were in a way the pioneers of society, the one that eventually brought an order of higher level equality.
They were in a way the pioneers of society, the one that eventually brought an order of higher level equality.
No. They criminalized non-christianity and supported slavery. In terms of ideas they had nothing new.
Who were "they"?
Christians
K