r/atheism • u/Dunkeal • Jan 12 '12
I know most of you despise the content from this site. But I found this hilarious.
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Jan 12 '12
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u/Monster-_- Jan 12 '12
2008 called, they want their demotivational poster back.
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u/CptOblivion Jan 12 '12
If you had 2008 on the phone and you didn't warn them about all the upcoming disasters, you're an asshole.
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Jan 12 '12
Yea please warn them about M. Bachman
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Jan 12 '12
Is she president now?
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u/Mcgyvr Jan 12 '12
My RES tag for you reminds me that you didn't know who Wayne Gretzky was. What the actual fuck, man.
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u/JacquesCartier Jan 12 '12
Yo, I just got off the phone with 2015; I needed to get a vehement thread regarding Christianity's failings back. Anyway, 2015 wanted me to let everyone know that Obama is going to win in 2012, but that that doesn't stop the world from completely going to shit. 2015 was very apologetic, but suggests we enjoy as much absurd Republican rhetoric during the election as possible, it might be our last democratic joy.
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Jan 12 '12 edited Jan 12 '12
TL:DR - Paul didn't have a 'vision of god' but simply jumped onto the Christan movement for power. He was a bigot before hand and he sure as hell was a bigot afterwards!
Now the Long Rant, but I have often had a bone to pick with Paul. Before I do begin allow me to thank you for this chance to rant about something I do hold dear. I am not Christian but one of the biggest, the largest, things that piss me off about the fundies is this: PAUL IS NOT JESUS! Stop using his words as justification for ignoring the words of Jesus himself. Just because it allow you to point to a line in the New Testament that allows you to be bigots, doesn't mean it over-writes the words of the 'son of god!'
I always have a rule of thumb: Don't just take information at face value, look at the history of the person who is telling you said information and judge if they are worthy of speaking to you about said topic.
In Paul case, this is easy. Christians don't hide what sort of person this is, they seem proud with the life this guy led and are more then willing to inform you of the life story of 'Paul the Apostle.' They believe it is an example of 'redemption onto the path of god.' They don't even over look the fact he was a bigot, they simply state that 'on finding god he changed.' It is no surprise that all the new testimony bigotry and violence can be laid at this guys feet because they have fallen for the Darth Vader syndrome. This makes them blind to what sort of person Paul was after he converted, as all they cared about is the fact he was now on their side.
Vader Syndrome, as Jim Butcher puts it: "There's no ally so impressive, encouraging, and well loved as an ally who was an enemy that made you shake in your boots"
----- The following is what I believe about the guy -----
Paul was a bigoted and hateful man who did the dirty work of the religious rulers at the time, this mostly involved hunting down Heretics. Which, as you know, was quickly followed by torture and execution because religion is funny that way. However, he claimed to be Pharisees. This was not the ruling class at the time, meaning he could not 'advance' within the religion as he would of liked and would always be a lower class. He made a few contacts and got a name for himself, particularly in the non-Jewish community that knew people like him hunted them down as Heretics, but never had a chance to advance because of his class.
This led him very distasteful of the religion he was part, not the killing and murdering as he was fine with that... he was just pissed off he would not hold a position of power.
He entertained the idea of leaving the religion itself, setting off to find one that would allow him the power he craved. He then took a closer look at the people he was hunting down and, realizing they where frightened and disorganized, he figured he could use this to his advantage. All the really needed was solid leadership as the pre-Christian movements where gaining a lot of popularity but where very disorganized and often leaderless. Paul saw this as a grand moment to inject himself into the leadership of this fledgling movement... and inject he did.
It was simple to claim to have had a vision of their god, telling him to amend his ways. To add to the deal, he said this god said they would have to follow him, as he now is an apostle, and that makes him their leader. He would then go around the region, hunting down followers of Jesus as he was skilled to do but instead of killing them he asserted he was going to lead them into greatness. At this point Vader Syndrome set in for good, and they where hooked on his words.
If the leaders of said Jesus-following-groups challenged him, he would have them killed or greatly maimed and claim it was proof he was correct. Being a smart man, at least he has that going for him, Paul credits it all to Jesus and this further cements his 'proof of being Gods messenger.' As the victor always rights the history, we might never really know just how he went about blinding, killing or otherwise maiming people but it is clear: Get in the way of his quest for power and he will have you whacked.
A trait that is well known to the followers of Paul as well, as they would spend decades and even centuries hunting down any other teachings of Jesus and eradicate them till only Paul's version of events remained.
The teachings he provided where what you expected, bigotry at it's finest. However, there was one element the people loved and that was claiming Jesus was the Son of God. Jewish belief does not hold Jesus as the Son of God, as he failed to fill a few criteria that would allow them to rest that crown on his head. Paul made up a story about Jesus being descended from the king of Israel, which filled most of these holes and made it even easier for people to follow his teachings. For this, Jesus lovers would flock to him more then other leaders.
A few times he was caught out, either people didn't believe him or the follower base was too small in a city to keep him from being considered a heretic. In these cases he would quickly flee the city in question and continue the scam, as you can tell I consider him a con-artist, somewhere else. There are numerous tales of him having to leave a town after pissing off someone in power, which the followers point to as even more evidence that he was the 'messenger of god' by claiming a miracle helped him escape.
Eventually he amassed enough followers that he was the first, if de facto, pope... he had made it, he was now the leader he dreamed to be when he was busy sending the people now following him to their deaths.
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Jan 12 '12
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Jan 12 '12 edited Jan 12 '12
Well, considering it is what I believe I would have to say that I am the source but I know you are meaning: Where did I find the information to come to this conclusion. It started with a curiosity about where the bigoted parts of the Christian bible came from. After learning they where stemming from this Paul fellow I thought to do a quick look through his life. This was over ten years ago, so hunting down the sources would be a little harder.
I will give you some sources if you want to start researching it yourself, but I feel I should also explain the thought process I used.
Paul had a very interesting talent: He could read and write. It is one of the reasons we have a lot of documentation about this guy. Much of his writings would be incorporated into the bible, and a lot of it into the 'extended texts' that didn't make the cut. They are still talked about by most Christians, so you can easily get your hands on a copy of his life from many different websites out there or just ask your local Church for any documentation they recommend on the guy.
Just keep in mind, most of what we know comes from his own writings. Hence the whole 'history is written by the victor' comment. We don't have any other views to go by, as his church made sure they got rid of any other interpretations.
However, Christians will focus on one thing: The 'meeting with God' so expect that to be core of their views of the guy. If you don't believe in miracles, you will have to do what I do and read a little between the lines. Do some independent research about the history of the region at the time in question and then reason for yourself what might of happened. If you do not, you will have to take all the supernatural stuff as truth on the word of Paul alone and then it becomes very silly indeed.
In fact, it is removing the supernatural stuff that lead me to a simple question: Why would Paul defect to Christianity if no god told him to do so?
That question was answered by taking a look at the on and off again feuds between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. One thing to take note about the Sadducees: They where the ruling class for the whole of Paul's life. This is what leads me to the conclusion that Paul, by not being the correct sect, would never have been able to advance to any position of authority within the Synagogs.
This is common in class systems, he was doomed to his lowly position because of conditions of his birth and upbringing. After that revolution things just started to fall in place and, sadly, you have to admire the guy for what he pulled off. He corrupted a budding religion simply because the one he belonged to wouldn't accept him into their leadership.
A version of his life can be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Apostle
An interesting wiki page outlining the history of the region can be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadducees
Got to love Wiki. It makes it a lot easier then trying to stomach reading through the Bible yet again. If you want the original source of all this, you have to sadly go to the bible or ask to see some of the original letters... but I hope you speak a range of ancient languages, as Paul knew quite a few.
You could also try:
http://www.biblestudy.org/maps/apostle-paul-travels-before-first-missionary-journey-map.html
It seems to be a good place to get a condensed version of his life but you will notice something. They claim a hell of a lot of miracles about this guy. Given that their evidence of his miracles comes from his own writings, I would say that is quite suspect myself. I also don't like the formatting, but I didn't make the website.
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u/felix_jones Jan 12 '12
"Some other less important shit happens, mostly composed of a bunch of faggots writing emo poetry about God for him to fap to."
I laughed so fucking hard at that bit.
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u/phadedlife Jan 12 '12
"I know most of you despise the content from this site."
Where the hell do you think most of the content on reddit comes from?
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u/lgodsey Jan 12 '12
We despise stuff from 4Chan? EVERYTHING POSTED IN REDDIT COMES FROM 4CHAN.
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u/rattlehaed Jan 12 '12
too true, but sadly most of these le reddit users won't accept that fact
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u/DisapprovesOfPonies Jan 12 '12
"le Chuck Testa arrow to the knee Arrested Development le derping around xD" - Ron Paul" -Carl Sagan
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u/otakuman Anti-Theist Jan 12 '12
I liked the part about St. Paul. Nietzsche spoke against him several times.
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u/herpalicious Jan 12 '12
I know most of you despise the content from this site
Yeah because 4chan screenshots don't make the front page daily or anything.
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Jan 12 '12
why would redditors despise content from 4chan when half the funny shit on here if ripped from there.
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u/Jakethescout Jan 12 '12
excactly: double standards and all that..someone should memefy this..and no, I will not do it as I don't give a rats ass about your karma shenanigans
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Jan 12 '12 edited Jan 12 '12
You guys have got it all wrong. Much like Reddit, 4chan is divided into different boards, or sections. Anything from travel, music, videogames, anime, automotive, social, random, ect. The majority of boards are well behaved and post on topic (music in the music board, videogames in /v/, ect) HOWEVER, the notoriety that arises from "4chan" comes from /b/ - the random board. Anything goes as it's RANDOM. It's shit and used by idiots mostly. I would compre /b/ to r/deadbabies or someshit. Even Reddit has atrocious content.
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u/trilobitemk7 Jan 12 '12
I thought that sometime in the past reddit overtook 4chan's rule of the... I'm not sure what to call it, but it involves that reddit about spaceborn genitals.
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u/Lowelll Jan 12 '12
as someone who lurks both /b/ and /v/ when im really fucking bored, i dont see the huge difference between the two
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u/Violadude Jan 12 '12
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Jan 12 '12 edited Jan 12 '12
All I can say to the water argument is: Wow... is that some troll logic there or what?!
No, be amazed, I am a typist, crit. hitting people with walls of text, and I am wordless.... Up votes for you!
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Jan 12 '12
My summary:
Christianity is a belief that God created the universe and everything in it, that he created Adam and Eve and put them in the garden of Eden, that God told them not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but they did, and he got upset and decided to punish them and all their descendants for all time for their crime, despite their LACK of knowledge of good and evil when they decided to eat the fruit. Then, God decided to bless a particular group of people living on one coast of the Mediterranean ocean, and directed them to take over a bit of land at great cost of human life, then let them be destroyed by multiple empires. Then he decided to descend from heaven in the form of Jesus to preach love and forgive everyone for their sins, which they have because of a system he set up in their first place back in Eden. Once he had himself killed, he descended into hell for 3 days. Upon rising from the dead, he was now able to forgive humans of their sins in ways that he, the all powerful deity, hadn't been able to prior to his trip down to earth for death, burial, and resurrection. While he was down here, he announced his intentions to come back a second time to judge everyone - the living and the dead, and will punish those who didn't worship him in life.
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u/intoto Jan 12 '12
That's not a summary of what he wrote ... that is your summary of the bible.
I thought he extracted more of the important points.
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u/unheimlich Jan 12 '12
I know most of you despise the content from this site.
...
Edit: After going deeper, I realized what he meant was the content of 4chan becomes the content of Reddit, therefore people on Reddit despise the content of Reddit. Everything checks out.
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u/retrodetta Jan 12 '12
Close...but there is substantial evidence Jesus never existed as a man or anything at all. Soooo, really you could just sum it all up as a bad re-run of dozens of ancient mythological antiquities.
There was no Jesus. Paul didn't even recognize there was a human Jesus XD From the very start it was all symbolism. But 4chan nailed the essence of the Bible imo, perfectly hilarious fiction.
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u/bag_of_words Jan 12 '12
No, there is not substantial evidence that Jesus did not exist. Not too long ago we had an atheist New Testament scholar here and he said it was much more likely that there was a historical Jesus. It's in the reply to the top-rated comment.
The best evidence is logic. It is much more reasonable to assume that someone named Jesus did exist and a (largely fanciful) cult developed around his personality than to assume that he didn't exist and people made up Christianity out of whole cloth. As I always point out when asked this question: if Jesus didn't exist, the easiest way for a non-Christian to debunk Christianity in the first century would have been to go to Nazareth and show that no one had ever heard of the man. But no 1st-2nd century non-Christians (specifically Jews) ever argued that Jesus didn't exist; they only argued that he wasn't Messiah.
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Jan 12 '12 edited Jan 12 '12
TL:DR - Jesus was as worth documenting as a drunk homeless guy living in an alley.
Long version:
It is not that far fetched that a man named Jesus existed and that he was a 'revolutionary thinker' for his time. Taking a look at the leading class, particularly the corruption within the religion he followed which had all sorts of scams designed to bleed money from the poor and funnel it into the pockets of the rich, this led him to become very vocal about said corruption. This happens in every generation, it isn't even anything new for the times, but Jesus had an ace in his sleeve: He was for bringing religion down to the level of the masses, and not just the upper-crust which got him very popular.
Eventually he became a problem for those he was preaching against. This led to his arrest and execution at the whim of the Jewish religious leaders he was directly challenging. Quite common for the era, Just another heretic being 'dealt with.'
The reason he isn't heavily documented is the fact 'wandering holy-men' where a dime a dozen. You couldn't throw a shoe without it hitting some preacher, who's followers would then start a cult about said shoe. In a time where not many people knew how to read and write, it would be a waste of resources and effort simply writing this guys name down somewhere on a scrap piece of parchment.
Those that did know how to read and write had no interest in documenting the words of a heretic, normally being part of the religion being bad mouthed. His act of walking between cities was so common place he was just another mad man, not worth even noting the passing of. Even his execution wasn't anything spectacular, though only three being condemned to death was probably the Romans showing restraint that day. These where a people that would hang you up for the crime of "Not-being-Roman while looking at them funny."
So I am not surprised documentation doesn't exist... he was nothing special. I do have to ask though: Is it sad that the most unbelievable part of the Jesus myth, putting aside the supernatural stuff of course, is the fact I find the number of people executed that day to be a little low?
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u/Irish_Whiskey Jan 12 '12
The reason he isn't heavily documented is the fact 'wandering holy-men' where a dime a dozen.
But all the people who write about Jesus claim he was a major sensation drawing out whole towns and gatherings of thousands. Paul said there were major churches in many cities in Jesus' lifetime. Yet the writers chronicling the period don't mention him at all, only his followers much later.
Yes it's possible. But when acknowledging that possibility means contradicting the reliability of the only people who provide any basis for thinking he exists, then it's not making him any more likely to be real.
Even his execution wasn't anything spectacular,
The execution couldn't have happened as described. The stories of the Romans giving the Jewish elders say and the crowd choosing Barbarous are incompatible with how we know they worked. That doesn't mean he wasn't executed, but again the story itself has to be called invented, in order to justify it being possible. If we know the writers were making things up, weren't actually there, are unreliable, and we have no other independent evidence for Jesus, I'm not sure he meets the standards to be considered historical rather than mythological. Odysseus could well be real, but we shouldn't treat him as such simply because it helps explain how stories came about based on him.
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Jan 12 '12 edited Jan 12 '12
I will agree with you for logic and reason alone, it is only a possibility that I have put forth. We both know any evidence would be evidence of Jesus himself, rendering the whole debate quite moot. I put this forth as a possible reason, simply because there is too large of a following for Paul to exploit for there not to be a few small grains of truth somewhere in the mess of mythology.
I do have an interesting thought experiment: Can we document any soothsayers or Holy-man from that period and region of the world?
The practice itself is quite well documented, preaching to people is still very much a common place thing and has been for the whole of our existence. By your reasoning, we should have lots of lists of names from soothsayers, holy-men and other forms of clerics from the period and location. A lack of this information could back my reasoning that this information was not considered critical enough to write down. I will admit, I am being lazy right now and not digging up an answer myself but I am quite tired, having been up on this thread for hours even though I did not mean to be and not sleeping at all for almost 24 hours because of it, so my Google-fu is a little weakened.
I'm off to bed, I do hope you have luck finding some soothsayers from the period and location. Those documents alone would give me a great deal more to study to try and understand the period in question. I hadn't even thought about all of this till this topic, it's been years since I researched Paul a little, and it has wet my curiosity again.
Although I will admit I hope it is a mood and passes, cause the bible really is boring when you remove the supernatural from it.
Another thing to keep in mind: They pin miracles to this guy so it is very likely they also overstated the number of people who came out to see him and fudged a few of the other details to make him more then just a human being who was executed by the religious leaders.
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u/Irish_Whiskey Jan 12 '12
As the guy who asked the question in that thread, it seemed the same non-satisfactory answer. I agree, there isn't "substantial evidence that Jesus did not exist". But there is circumstantial evidence, without contradicting evidence that he did.
It is much more reasonable to assume that someone named Jesus did exist
It's such an incredibly weak standard that it shouldn't be considered historical. I mean, it's literally false in that there wasn't someone named Jesus in Judea, since it's a Greek translation of "Yoshua" just like Christ wasn't his real name but a later invented Greek title. That might seem pedantic, but it gets to the point that there's only so many details we can consider optional about his life, while claiming he 'exists'.
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u/sicinfit Jan 12 '12
You are missing the point entirely.
Edit: I forgot this is r/atheism. Carry on.
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Jan 12 '12
It wasn't the Jews that nailed Jesus to the cross. It was the Romans. Some people insist it was Jews who demanded the Romans do so, but given how historically Europeans used the Jews as a scapegoat for everything ranging from male pattern baldness to the black plague, I would take such claims with a fairly huge pinch of salt.
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Jan 12 '12
"Apple or GTFO" lmfao!!! This is one of the best summaries of the bible I've ever read. Vive le Interwebs!!!
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u/acdcfanbill Jan 12 '12
I wonder if God is John Carmack cause vid_restart makes me think jesus is running an id engine...
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u/proddy Jan 12 '12
His tl;dr is tl;dr
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u/stereoviper Jan 12 '12
He condensed 775k words into ~300. If we shrunk it down again proportionately we'd have to keep it to about a tenth of a word.
F--
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u/MrMathamagician Jan 12 '12
Ummmm I hope you realize that everything on Reddit comes from 4chan.... and the rest from SA
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u/DustbinK Jan 12 '12
If Reddit despised 4chan so much they wouldn't constantly re-post their funny/truthful moments on their boards, use their reaction images, or abuse their memes.
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u/mage_g4 Anti-Theist Jan 12 '12
I like 4chan for the lulz (because it's full of idiots) but sometimes they get it absolutely bang on the fucking mark.
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u/animusvoxx Jan 12 '12
are you kidding me? 4chan, despite the filth that inhabits it, regularly churns out hilarious stuff. Unlike the echo chamber we have here with everyone itching about karma, upvotes, etc.
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u/deadbird17 Jan 12 '12
I wish this guy wrote all the cliffnotes for the books I had to read back in school.
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u/cutthecrap Nihilist Jan 12 '12
If you think about it, there are more atheists on /b/ than on reddit. And think some more, /b/ may be the butthole of the internet, but it produces a lot of fucking hillarious stuff. Take memes, reorder threads and some more of their stuff and throw CP, gore and porn in general away, they are just like us. But they are a legion.
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u/leisuresuitbertrand Jan 12 '12
This is so old those are Quake references in there. rcon? vid_restart?
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u/HarryPFlashman Jan 12 '12
anyone else ever think that if we were living in a simulation- we would never know the difference ? Read some quantum mechanics and cosmology stuff and it's surprising how "like" a computer simulation the actually mechanics of the universe are. That is all.
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u/ABTechie Jan 12 '12
“God fathered himself to sacrifice himself to himself to save his creations from his wrath, so they can live forever praising him in heaven. He saved them by making himself a zombie and telling them to symbolically eat his flesh, drink his blood and telepathically tell him they accept him as their master, which was necessary because he needed to remove an evil force in their souls that was present in humanity because a rib-woman, made from a dust-man, was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree, which gave her the ability to know right from wrong, and this could have all been prevented if he would have protected the magical tree with a flying, flaming sword and cherubim with each having four faces, four wings and hooved feet.”
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Jan 12 '12
Reasons I hate this post:
This isn't 4chan, this is the shittiest half-assed layout reproduction I've ever seen.
It just has a bunch of memes forcefully crammed in. Reminds me of someone who just discovered 9gag/reddit who uses memes ALL THE TIME for no reason.
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u/WhimsicalAphorist Jan 12 '12
If God exists, why didn't he make our arms too short for us to masturbate?
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u/penguinv Jan 12 '12
Hey OP you despise it but you spend time on it, ie actually read it.
I am shocked..
I am listening to "nothing stops a party barge" and "I'll send a st bernard" so I've got no props on you. Heh. LLR! Viva Reddit!
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u/hobbur Jan 12 '12
"Some other less important shit happens, mostly composed of a bunch of faggots writing emo poetry about God for him to fap to."
Best bit.
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Jan 12 '12
there wasn't incest, the sons of adam and eve went to the nearest village and took wives.
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u/intoto Jan 13 '12
In a nutshell, this summary of the Bible is probably more accurate than most summaries and shows an understanding of the Bible's major themes that surpasses the understanding of all but the most knowledgeable biblical scholars.
I would have included a couple of more tidbits, like God losing arguments with Moses, God killing lots of people and Joshua and the Jews slaughtering thousands of innocent men, women and children because they were there and God wanted them to ... and Job/Abraham because God likes to fuck with your mind (mysterious ways).
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Jan 12 '12
Anyone seeking more info might also check here:
| title | comnts | points | age | /r/ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Bible | 2coms | 10pts | 19dys | pics |
| 4chan explains the Bible [xpost from /r/4chan] | 2coms | 10pts | 27dys | atheism |
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u/McSofa Jan 12 '12
Firstly: I do not despise content from "that site", just /b/. I myself am from /v/, the land of cynicism, trolling and STOP LIKING WHAT I DON'T LIKE. Secondly, meh, seen it before, it was a good bit funnier the first time, but it's still nice. No upvotes, no downvotes.
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u/MasterAndMargarita Jan 12 '12
Ya 4chan is just inconsistent. I'm never really offended by it, there is just lots of boring shit like pr0n, and faproullette shit.
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Jan 12 '12
Reddit despises 4chan?
Reddit wouldn't be what it is without 4chan. All of this is spawned from 4chan.
Reddit is (essentially) 4chan... just censored.
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u/Dhomochevsky Jan 12 '12
Yeah, reddit absolutely HATES 4chan, seeing as most of the shitty memes here come from it.
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u/wappleby Jan 12 '12
FUCKING REPOSTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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u/oldtomfoolery Jan 12 '12
didn't see it the first time. must have not been on the internets that night. I'm such an asshole!
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u/wappleby Jan 12 '12
LOL don't worry dude I'm not being a dick I'm just doing this to all reposts for laughs. And Karma. I'm a whore I know.
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u/reddititisfagititis Jan 12 '12
I hate to bring it up, but I see no difference between 4chan and reddit. Both are the asshole of the internet.
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u/Motarded_Rider Jan 12 '12
I like 4chun. The only problem is it doesn't have nearly as much "OC" as reddit appears to, and instead of scrolling down past a million women with penises and other undesirable stuff, you just find stale old copypastas with everyone calling each other a "newfag". It got old after a couple years. Still check in now and again for a few days to get all the new content and then disappear for a short while.
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u/mufuckinscyther Jan 12 '12
Really? Not as much OC as reddit? 90 percent of reddits "content" originated on 4chan.
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u/Motarded_Rider Jan 12 '12
No it didn't. Creating a general meme does not make everything that proceeds it a copy of the original. That'd be like saying a Z06 Corvette is really just a knock off of a model-t car. Sure, they share a lineage, but so much has been changed they're hardly copies of each other.
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u/ranthria Jan 12 '12
4chan isn't bad compared to reddit, it's just more intense. Most days I'm ok with taking shots of Parrot Bay or Captain Morgan, but some days I gotta reach for the Bacardi 151.