Reply to: Easter is all about...

[cojak]

Be courageous and kind.

That's it.

[AlfredJPruffock]

So he maintains Jesus Christ didn't exist - he will soon change his tune will when he is facing him on the Day of Judgement - what pathetic blasphemy.

Repent and Believe in the Gospel !

[Gumbo Robot]

One thing that Easter gave us that I do like is hot cross buns. You can buy them all year round now of course.

Mmmm! Going to warm one up now, Thank you lord!

My wife made a bread and butter pudding from hot cross buns the other day. It was historic.

[SpontaneousOrder]

Oh.

Another high priest of atheism.

A bit like Dawkins.

How tedious.

Why these people can't leave others alone to believe what they like is beyond me.

Because it ruins lives.

I used to think the same until fairly recently (not that people shouldn't be called out - just why would you waste your time arguing over something so ridiculous). But I'm more sympathetic to Dawkins and the like now - other parts of the world a properly ****ed up because people believe in fairy tales.

[xoggoth]

Nothing wrong with religious belief as such, indeed, it can be positive by making people happier.

The problem is when religion spills out into politics and irrational ideas based on ancient texts are used as the basis of laws or imposed customs. Most obviously in Islamic and third world/developing countries but in our own societies to a lesser extent. It is hard to believe, for example, that the exclusion of women from major religious roles has had no influence on attitudes in general and is not an impediment to achieving real equality. Many other obvious issues too, like abortion or right to die, invoke religious lobbying.

The religious have as much right as anyone else to express their views in a democracy but equally the rest of us are entitled to oppose them. Since those views are based on faith and not logic you cannot challenge them without also challenging the basis of them.

[meridian]

Why these people can't leave others alone to believe what they like is beyond me.

Exactly. Then we could also do away with priests, imams, etc, who continually espouse what they believe and encourage others to join them in their belief. Some of them even make it onto the telly on a Sunday morning to tell us all what they believe.

I passed a few people selling Watchtower on Westminster Bridge yesterday but I wouldn't tell them to stfu and leave others alone, so why do you think it's okay to tell an atheist to do so?

[NotAllThere]

I was under the impression that, regardless of whether he was/is the son of God or not, it was pretty much agreed that there was such a person as Jesus.

It is. There are more theologians who've written books about the non-historicity of Jesus than historians, because serious scholarly historians know better.

However, writing a book "There was certainly a figure in history named Jesus" is unlikely to attract attention or be bought outside of historical/theological circles. Also, David Fitzgerald is a militant "evangelical" atheist activist, dedicated to the atheist cause, so "he would say that, wouldn't he." He's not a serious historian - just a guy with a BA in history who's decided to write books promoting his cause.

Why these people can't leave others alone to believe what they like is beyond me.

Because they have a deep seated need to convince people that they are right, coupled with an irrational hatred of religion.

[BrilloPad]

xoggoth does not exist

[Jack Kada]

One thing that Easter gave us that I do like is hot cross buns. You can buy them all year round now of course.

Mmmm! Going to warm one up now, Thank you lord!

What about chocolates ...

[MicrosoftBob]

Easter bunnies were pagan until the romans used Christianity to subdue restless natives like in Britain

[xoggoth]

One thing that Easter gave us that I do like is hot cross buns. You can buy them all year round now of course.

Mmmm! Going to warm one up now, Thank you lord!

[xoggoth]

have been tinkered with a fair bit

Indeed. Same with the Koran, and doubtless other religious texts too. It is even going on today, Turkey revised the Hadith a few years back.

That's the biggest flaw in religious belief, the number of different religions and the numerous variations within them. They can't all be right. All those "proofs" the religious trot out can't be valid if they all prove different things.

The idea that god would convey his will to man in this way, by appointing a few human messiahs or prophets to spread it, is absurd. What about those born before the chosen one, those in other countries who died before the message reached them or were taught the wrong beliefs as children? Didn't they matter? Did he never consider his word might be distorted or altered? He is supposed to be omnipotent, a creator of universes, so would he really do such a pathetic job?

Robert Fisk: After the Arab Spring, an Islamic Awakening? - Robert Fisk - Commentators - The Independent
BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Turkey in radical revision of Islamic texts

[TykeMerc]

Considering how long ago it was, how many documents that have survived and can be proven to be from the time Jesus was supposed to be kicking about I'd say it's impossible to do anything but guess. It's not like there are newspapers from the era in question and one man's miracle is another man's fake so apart from the political fuss there's not that much which would have been recorded. The Romans may well have seen it as another sectarian Jewish spat and ignored 95% of it too.

It's been acknowledged that most of the gospels were written well after the events and there's a fair bit of evidence that they have been tinkered with a fair bit so they can't be termed precise (except by the religious types that take them on face value),

[mudskipper]

I was under the impression that, regardless of whether he was/is the son of God or not, it was pretty much agreed that there was such a person as Jesus.

[malvolio]

125 historical documents, eh... Wonder if they included Tactitus's Annals and the works of Josephus...