Willie71

On the appearance of Jesus, from Wikipedia again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_appearance_of_Jesus Would you like a list of the books and articles I have read over the past 30 years? What I have listed is a sequence of events from the bible, which is supposed to be the proof that Jesus existed, as he does not appear in any other historical references from that time period. I have searched for any proofs from history, and none of the proofs that people publish are anything more than an argument from incredulity, or a call to prove he didn't exist. On the other hand, historians have searched for any confirmation, and only report the three sources, listed earlier, none reliable in any way. If you want proof Ceasar Agustus existed, or King Tut, there is no way to claim they didn't exist. Jesus on the other hand, no such evidence exists.

Ummm...... Joseph didn't have sex with Mary. There is no lineage even though the bible claims there is. It has two contradictory lineages. From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genealogy_of_Jesus This was one of my early indications that the bible was a myth. Combined with the omission of the virgin birth in the first gospel, or a physical Jesus (spiritual realm Jesus), the evolution of the myth through the gospels to better fit Lord Raglan's Hero, or a direct copy of Zoroaster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroaster, predating Jesus by 4000 years, or at the time of creation in the old testament if the bible is history, if you prefer, there seemed no way to reconcile this as a historical text.

Renaissance painters depicted Jesus as white with blondish hair. That doesn't make it accurate either.

When corruption runs that deep, that systemically, it would be very difficult to rebuild from within. The most cost effective solution, if you truly want to get rid of the racism is to disband, and bring in a new force. Of course that is more expensive than pretending to fix the problem.

I haven't read the Carrier book yet. I will form an opinion based on the evidence presented, when I read the book. The sentence refers to people's statements of belief, separate from the actual fact of the matter. 10% of people in the US believe they have seen UFOs, that does not make it true. The actual sentence you used as evidence removed the qualifier at the end: So, while they advocate for a historical Jesus, they confirm what others say by broadening their definition of historical Jesus into the realm of myth.

This makes me sad. I don't remember a Democrat who has used a racist platform in decades, but there might be some I don't know about. Modern democrat policies include amnesty, minority equality, increasing the minimum wage, decreasing the increasing disparity in the distribution of wealth, and foreign policy based more on diplomacy than war. While democrats do get bought through the legalized bribery that is American Democracy, the policies are not racist. Welfare as racism? Totally laughable and an insult to reality. The welfare system needs an overhaul, but don't forget that there are states where 90+% of food stamp recipients are white. People in poverty are locked into a winless cycle in spite of race, not because of race.

Too bad you didn't talk to my last boss. I have over 20 years working with troubled youth, and she had three years experience working with the general population. She would re-write my letters to physicians, changing the meaning significantly, restrict me from using best practice therapies, limit the number of sessions I could have on a particular topic, forced me to close files earlier than they ethically should have been. I tried to work with her supervisors, but in the end, I had to quit from an organization I worked for for 22 years. She could not comprehend that someone could know something that she didn't.

That is the difference between academia, and faithful people. You have just shown a great example of confirmation bias. You picked out a piece of information that fit your worldview, and ignored the rest. Historically, people went with the status quo, and lived with the assumption that there was a live jesus at some point. As scholars have looked at this with greater scrutiny, the view is changing, as it should when a field improves its fund of knowledge, technique, or new evidence comes forth. I ordered the Richard Carrier book today, after reviewing that wiki article. After reading Dundes and Price, looking specifically at the jesus myth, with the strong, almost irrefutable evidence it is a myth, I look forward to this take on the subject. I suspect many academics have avoided controversy, especially in America, because of the power of the religious right, or never really felt strongly enough to take a stand. With the popularity of the new atheists, the four horsemen, it is acceptible to come out and say what is really felt on the topic.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_historical_existence_of_Jesus_Christ This sums up the past 27 pages. There is little evidence of a historical jesus, especially a singular character. A conglomeration of several figures and application of Lord Raglan's hero is extremely probable.

Rob, I think you aren't trying very hard. This is the first entry in my google search: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontifical_Council_for_Justice_and_Peace

The Pontification Council is one of the highest authorities in the Catholic Church. They directly advise the pope. The article discusses the old and New Testament, both of which are deemed histoically inaccurate, and divine inspiration is questioned based on views on women, and morality, or immorality as it were.

Have a read. http://vaticanfiles.org/2014/08/

You do realize the other messianic figures had followings, rituals etc. The gospels are not history. Even the Roman Catholic Church has backed away from any claims of historical accuracy. Just because you want something to be true, does not make it true. A great read on this topic is Richard Dawkins "The God Delusion." Whether you agree with it or not, you can learn from the description of the logical fallacies that are commonly used to support God/Jesus. Make your own conclusions either based on or in spite of the evidence, but please inform yourself, as correcting logical fallacies is getting tiring.

There were numerous messianic figures during that timeframe who borrowed or stole key components from pagan gods, Norse, Greek or roman gods, and the Jesus story is an above average compilation of these stories. Who would do this? Anyone politically savvy enough to realize that uniting multiple pagan territories with a shared belief system would result in less division amongst territories. Why not take the glory for oneself? It's a hard sell, asking people to sacrifice everything for a mortal leader, without repayment in this life. However, if your God pays you back when you are dead, problem solved. People accepted this invented story because the region was shifting away from polytheism to monotheism (even though there are three incarnations of God????) and the claims were well established in culture, just with different names. It's easy enough to look up all the similar myths.

You don't die in real life because of dying in a dream.

You want what is called social skills training. You probably want to attend a teaching group for that too. The role playing and feedback is very important.

You are trying to establish a false equivalency. There are a few on the left who take nutty positions, but why is that? Are schools doing an adequate job educating people on science? They clearly aren't. The ongoing assault on science by networks such as Fox works to fill people with fear. Who pushes for control of the science class? Who pushes to remove evolution from science? Who pushes to have intelligent design or creationism taught as science? Like the conservatives say about Muslims: where is the outrage? Where is the speaking out? By voting for representatives who push the agendas, people are being complicit. You can't vote these people in on their policies, then say conservatives don't believe these things. That's why they got voted in. The stats on evolution deniers is based on misrepresenting a study on sociologists who were asked what personality traits were based on genetics, one of the areas that is very difficult to research, and draw definitive conclusions. By saying they were unsure how much jealousy was genetic, or intelligence was genetic, conservatives claimed that meant they didn't believe in evolution. ??????? False equivalency again. The current generation of mental health professionals generally accept a 70:30 balance between environment:genetics in personality development. Some of the dinosaurs have not kept up with the research. Your answer will depend on who you poll in this field. There is rapid growth in the research. I agree with you on the shift to the right, and how that affects what people believe their party stands for. What many don't believe is that the same people who want to oppose gay marriage also believe that homosexuals should be stoned to death. That isn't advertised. It is part of the dominionism that funds much of the conservative party. It might be interesting for some to take this quiz and see where they actually fit on the political scale. http://www.people-press.org/quiz/political-typology/ There are a number of charts and diagrams that show the spread of beliefs on the issues we have discussed here. http://www.journalism.org/2014/10/21/political-polarization-media-habits/ The evidence just does not support equivalencies between the parties. If you want to see how people actually answered the polling questions on various issues, have a read: http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/26/typology-comparison/

Great response. Thank you. On another forum, I often said that I am unaffiliated, but because I rejected the conservative rhetoric, I was labelled a liberal by the conservatives. I actually look at each individual issue, and evaluate what the evidence says. To some that means liberal. Morality and ethics are fascinating. It seems to me that most conservatives use a deontological perspective. There are rigid rules that must be followed, even if the outcome is poor. Outcome is unimportant in the deontological perspective. I do think there is a dishonesty when they use a utilitarian perspective to justify there own torture, or killing of civilians in the Middle East, as the deontological values are then violated. Many believe that liberals are all egalitarian, but that isn't true. Most are utilitarian. It seems the conservatives fear the utilitarian stance. I have been reading a book on the process of the conservative shift to the right in America, starting with Rushdooney, and Dobson, and the influence of the evangelical Protestants. Fromm did a lot of work on the psychology of the avoidance of freedom, the strict heirarchy, and unfaltering devotion to masochistic leaders, as they save people from the moral depravity lurking around every corner. It's been eye opening, showing me how ignorant I have been in my discussions with people who hold these values. Reason is not going to have an impact. These leaders have encouraged authoritarian parenting, corporal punishment, strict moral codes creating traumatic bonding requiring authoritarian leadership in the adult world. These leaders have been brilliant.

I disagree with the idea that liberals focus on liberalism as it is promoted by learning institutions, but that liberalism is promoted by learning institutions because the evidence supports ideas that are consistent with liberal ideals. It comes down to evidence. The world is not 6000 years old, the climate is changing, oppressing minorities results in social problems that are nearly impossible to overcome, supply side economics does not result in trickle down wealth for all, and that bombing others results in extremist groups. These ideas are not promoted by universities out of favour for the ideas, but because research has shown them to be true, or at least as close to the definition of true as possible. While a caponservative would argue it's not real, and a liberal agenda to promote these ideas with a false science, that is just another ant academic argument. In a much broader sense, pure egalitarianism isn't realistic for most, if not all cultures, but there must be consideration of the balance between the individual and the greater good. Rigid belief systems do not allow for these discussions, of where to draw the line. In a hunter gatherer society, that would be a different debate than what one would expect in the wealthiest societies on earth. The question becomes how do you discuss this with someone who is not interested in looking at evidence?

This is the bottom line, isn't it. Chris Mooney just wrote a book on this topic as well. http://www.amazon.com/Republican-Brain-Science-Science--Reality/dp/1118094514/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8The question was asked, multiple studies were completed, and the evidence shows that people who hold conservative values have differences in their brains that are associated with the rejection or reason and evidence. There is no such comparison with people who have to look at evidence to make decisions.

...because people don't like to grieve. We are indoctrinated/brainwashed as kids to have this great, awesome magical friend who can cure disease, give us everlasting bliss (without sex, alcohol, cool music, and with mind numbing monotony- how many times did we check the time left in mass growing up?) if we give up all happiness in this life, in exchange for an afterlife we have to accept on faith. Since we have a personal relationship with this friend who never confirms he is there (why is he a he?) nor answers our prayers beyond a frequency consistent with confirmation bias, we are trained to bond in the same way a battered woman bonds with her abuser, on promises it will be better in the future, and that he really does love her, even though any objective measure would smash that assertion. So, you see it's obvious. We are traumatically bonded to him, and it's nearly impossible to break the abuse cycle.

I wish I could give you unlimited positives for this post. As I learn more about American history, the more I realize the bizarre belief that the U.S. is a free nation is as far removed from reality as it is. All of the evidence points to an emerging fascist state. History will see the Americans much like we see Nazi Germany today. I an quite frightened as to how far this will go before it is stopped.

I do a lot of work with IQ even though I don't do the tests. I no longer look at the overall number, but at the scatter of the scores across the subscales to help kids/families make academic and career choices. Some people with average overall scores are gifted in subscales, and should focus their careers in those areas of strength. Being gifted in all areas is quite unlikely. I myself have an eidetic memory, but cannot remember a phone number, address, or name without exceptional effort. On the other hand, I can still see diagrams in text books from high school, and can remember parts of every conversation I have had in my life. I can remember the plot of every book, movie, or TV show I have ever seen. I can remember the history and treatment progression of over 2000 families, but if I met them on the street, I couldn't recall their name. In some areas, I would be scored in the mentally retarded range. I have seen too many kids labelled average or low average based on their overall score, when they have an area of gifted ness in the testing. One of the problems with IQ testing is the reliance on verbal instructions to complete the tasks. This is probably optimal for less than 30% of the kids receiving the tests.

Thank you for saving me the hassle. I always find it tiresome to reply to the faithful who believe in the peaceful truth in their infallible book that they have not actually read, nor do they realize that it says what people who have read it say.

I just finished reading The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney, and that book answers the questions pointed out here quite nicely. There was a divergence on the right, and particularly the far right isolating itself from academia and evidence in the 60's, exacerbated by Reagan in the 80's to the point that laws were passed that made it nearly impossible to influence policy with science, giving significant advantage to big industry, such as tobacco, oil, and sugar. George W. Continued to totally dismantle any chance for the government to utilize evidence to inform policy, and the propoganda has led many conservatives to believe that science is just a liberal brainwashing field. When they use the term "junk science" they are referring to real science that hasn't passed the conservative standard that is unrealistic in real practice. They call valid science "sound science" and the definition is quite rigid, meaning if it isn't direct laboratory cause and effect, it cannot pass the standard. Because of this, anything involving modelling is out, probability is out, psychology, economics, climate science, sociology, medicine etc. cannot meet the minimum standard and gets labeled "junk science" by conservatives. Is this delusional, on the same scale that religion is. They believe what they are taught, and in the strongly conservative states, there is a concerted effort to remove critical thinking from schools. They feel it promotes liberal ideation, and socialism or communism will follow. I personally believe the big industry buys these guys to do their bidding, and doubt many of them actually believe what they are saying.