Just weakening the claims to slide it within the possible instead of following the evidence to where it leads. Mary could not have just been someone James hired to ramble. No? Couldn’t just go with the simplest possible explanation for the data. Have to invent this whole sequence of events that just so happen to wipe out all supporting evidence along the way.
Anyway, so a hallucinated dead mini-cult leader could totally inspire a few key people to start a religion. Without those two key things, he probably would have been forgotten to history.
Name one. Name a single time in history that a cult leader for six months produced a religion that was remotely successful. Joseph Smith 14 years, Buddha supposedly 50, Mohammed 22, Huysan 29 years.
You can’t. Religions survive their founder when they build institutions. Which takes time. The simple explanation is that James made it all up and Paul took it seriously. Those two men spent about 4 decades building up Christianity on two supports. If Jesus had really existed and died after a few months James would have not continued the mission.
It’s my understanding most estimates put his preaching days between 1 and 3 years, but for the purposes of both our arguments, it’s immaterial.
I’m struggling to understand why Jesus being completely made up is more plausible than even just James seizing the opportunity to deify a dead preacher? Like, why is it that James and Paul being the practical founders of Christianity can’t coexist with the existence of Jesus? While I believe James was earnest in his faith, I don’t see why that matters?
Regardless of their faith, everyone agrees that Paul and James are the biggest reasons for Christianity’s early success. Wouldn’t it be easier to use an unknown dead religious figure as your central theme than to make one up? You’d have ready-baked independent witnesses to say “yeah that guy really did exist” and then all you have to add in is the part where he comes back to life for a few days and then conveniently disappears into heaven.
Just weakening the claims to slide it within the possible instead of following the evidence to where it leads. Mary could not have just been someone James hired to ramble. No? Couldn’t just go with the simplest possible explanation for the data. Have to invent this whole sequence of events that just so happen to wipe out all supporting evidence along the way.
Name one. Name a single time in history that a cult leader for six months produced a religion that was remotely successful. Joseph Smith 14 years, Buddha supposedly 50, Mohammed 22, Huysan 29 years.
You can’t. Religions survive their founder when they build institutions. Which takes time. The simple explanation is that James made it all up and Paul took it seriously. Those two men spent about 4 decades building up Christianity on two supports. If Jesus had really existed and died after a few months James would have not continued the mission.
It’s my understanding most estimates put his preaching days between 1 and 3 years, but for the purposes of both our arguments, it’s immaterial.
I’m struggling to understand why Jesus being completely made up is more plausible than even just James seizing the opportunity to deify a dead preacher? Like, why is it that James and Paul being the practical founders of Christianity can’t coexist with the existence of Jesus? While I believe James was earnest in his faith, I don’t see why that matters?
Regardless of their faith, everyone agrees that Paul and James are the biggest reasons for Christianity’s early success. Wouldn’t it be easier to use an unknown dead religious figure as your central theme than to make one up? You’d have ready-baked independent witnesses to say “yeah that guy really did exist” and then all you have to add in is the part where he comes back to life for a few days and then conveniently disappears into heaven.