h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, it seems that the debates off of my page have gone into a lull, and you asked for challenges, so challenges I have. Here you are:

1. Satisfactorily chronicle Jesus' story, beginning with the discovery of the tomb, using ALL details supplied in the Gospels, Acts, James, and any other NT book that contains a mention that I haven't uncovered. I'll give you a hint...it can't be done, because there are too many contradictions.

2. Satisfactorily justify the crucifix, the Turin Shroud, the alleged pieces of the cross and nails assembled in various churches throughout Europe and Palestine, the "Virgin of Guadelupe" (painting in Mexico alleged to have healing powers), and any and all other symbols and sites worshipped as holy by Christians in regard to the First Commandment: "You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; you shall not bow down before them or worship them."

Good luck. Oh, and by the way, if that message on the top of your homepage is what I think it is, it's a misquote. The sign above the gateway to hell in the works of Dante read "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."

Well, well, a challenge indeed. Thanks, I'll deal with it when I can.
Thanks also for the quote correction, that's what I get for trying to produce quotes from memory.

Anyone mind if I join in the fun?

By all means, doc. These discussions are the best way to learn, in my opinion. I find it ironic that Christians teach me more about atheism, but there you have it.

I'd just like to point out that all of the 'contradictions' in the passion story have to do with minor details. They all agree (or at least can easily be reconciled) on the major points of the Crucifixion and Resurrection. Indeed, any decent historian would take these minor discrepancies as a sign of authenticity -- it would be more than a bit suspicious if all four Gospels said the exact same thing.

Actually, I don't think that I've heard of any contradictions for which I haven't heard a decent explanation. Perhaps if you could provide a few specific examples of what you had in mind, we'll see what we can do.

As for the Shroud of Turin and other 'Holy Relics,' it'll be quite some time before I defend them. My faith is not based on a piece of cloth or splinter of wood. I honestly don't know if such relics are genuine. If they are, great. If not, it doesn't change one word of the Bible. I can certainly understand how you could see them as idols, though. Anyone who does bow to them or pray to them is, in my opinion, coming dangerously close to idolatry. For the most part, relics are important to the Catholic church (of which I am not a part), and there are a whole lot of differences between Catholicism and Protestantism.

And kindly refrain from referring to me as 'doc!' (My apologies, I couldn't resist a little random quote from 'Doctor Who.' I really don't care if you call me doc.)

Welcome to the discussion. Seems you took the easy path for answering that question, or maybe I just make things too difficult on myself. I agree with you about the shroud and pieces of the cross. Can you really even know whether all the pieces of the Berlin Wall floating around are authentic? They're both really just concepts invented by some enterprising souvenir merchant. Not to put the blame on any one particular group, but the Catholics do have more of a tendency to put their faith on material objects, and are probably the most frequent buyers of said objects.

So GargleBlaster, how about taking up the challenge. Find a "contradiction", and we'll see If we can't come up with a reasonable explanation.

The contradictions can be dismissed as minor UNTIL after the crucifixion. At that point, the accounts differ so badly, they can only be fiction. The sepulchre was first discovered by the two Marys/two Marys and Salome/Magdalene alone at dawn/just after dawn/while it was still dark, and there spoke to an angel they watched descend from heaven/a young man in a white robe/two men in dazzling garments/nobody. Jesus first appeared to the two Marys just outside the sepulcre/Mary Magdalene alone/Cleopas and companion. This is just from a cursory glance through the Gospels, but there's tons more here. Any detective will tell you that, when four people describe the same event, and none of them agree on any single point, they're lying.

Hehe, forgot about this forum.

Well first things first. The time difference. The greek word in use in all the passages is not really a definite statement of time. The action obviously takes place sometime near dawn (it would be rather dark just before dawn).

The various gospels all speak of women. Luke just states that there were a number of women. Each gospel writer, none of which were actually present for this, each included a group of women, some just pared it down to women whose names would be known from elsewhere.

These women came to the tomb, and saw the stone rolled away. Mary Magdelene ran away then to tell the disciples, while the other women went inside the tomb. There they saw the angels, who told them to tell the disciples that jesus had risen. Some of these fled to their homes, and some went to tell the disciples. They were met on the way back to the city by Jesus. Meanwhile, Mary Magdelene had already alerted the disciples and returned with Peter and John to the grave. After they had gone into the grave and saw nothing, they left, while Mary lingered. Jesus appears to her here and comforts her.

That clear things up any? I think I left a few things out so feel free to question further.

Ummm...okay. I can see quite a few details glossed over here, so it doesn't quite fulfill the sprit of my challenge, but if it works for you... Not to mention that you have stopped dead after the discovery at the tomb, where I was looking for a full chronology from discovery to ascension. I really just put forth this challenge as a way for you to discover a little something, but it seems you choose not to see. It is a very powerful thing, this faith, and it is often found coupled with the word "blind." Interesting, don't you think?

The problem here is that no answer provided will be satisfactory to you. The basic timeline is clearly understood in all of the Gospels as ddombrow just described. The details are not that important. As I've already said, any historian would take conflicting secondary details as a sign of authenticity. You can't just throw out the Bible because the Gospels each name a different woman at the tomb. Sorry, this isn't really what I wanted to write about, so I'll move on.

As for the topic of blind faith, Christianity is no more blind than any other belief (less so than many). Can you satisfactorily explain how the cosmos began without a God of some sort? Can you satisfactorily explain why the cosmos exists as it does, in a manner that is so completely suitable for mankind? Can you satisfactorily explain how inorganic matter magically transformed itself into sentient life? Can you satisfactorily explain why, after forty years of searching, we haven't heard so much as a peep out of extra-terrestrial life when science says that the galaxy should be teeming with it?

Can you satisfactorily explain why the Sanhedrin didn't just pull out Jesus' body to show people that it was a hoax? Can you satisfactorily explain the radically changed lives of millions of people over the past two thousand years? Can you satisfactorily explain the millions (if not billions) of inexplicable happenings / miracles that people have experienced?

Forgive me, I'm ranting. The point is this: There are questions that Christians cannot answer. There are questions that atheists cannot answer. So far, in my search for the truth, I have had no choice but to conclude that Christianity is the only system of beliefs that makes sense. Trust me, I've tried to reason my way out of Christianity, and it doesn't work. If you can convince me that I'm wrong, then I will be more than happy to turn my back on Christianity.

You have a point, doc, and a valid one, but I tend to agree with Gargleblaster on this one. In my defense I was just responding to the specific difficulties he mentioned when he proposed the resurrection as a source of controversy. In his defense, as I read my own words I'm not really sure I did that very well. So, apologies GB, for wasting your time. I'll start from scratch and give it a second go.

BTW, do you have any historical evidence for the validity of the Gospel of Thomas? Just wondering.

The basic timeline is not understood. The gospels disagree on EVERY SINGLE DETAIL. In no way can they be the telling of the same tale. This is not evidence of authenticity. Authentic history would have a few details off, but agree on the major points. The only point that they agree on is that the stone was rolled away. And yet Christians calmly and rationally state that it couldn't possibly have been rolled away by human hands. Which is odd, considering that the women were coming to treat the body in the usual way...wouldn't the stone have to be rolled away for them to do so?

Sanhedrin didn't pull out Jesus' body because they didn't have a body to offer...I've already covered that in my article.

Perception is a powerful thing. Jesus didn't have to be real to affect people, he just had to be believed to be real.

Having never experienced a miracle, nor met anyone who had, I cannot possibly go into this one. Anyway, a miracle is simply an occurence that man lacks the knowledge to properly explain. Last year's drought may have appeared to the casual observer as the result of divine intervention some few decades ago, but now we know it for a regular and predictable weather pattern known as "El Nino."

I'm not saying the rest of the world has all of the answers...I'm just saying that Christianity has none of them. The sooner we put aside mythology, the sooner we can get on to the business of discovering the true nature of the universe.

As far as being able to explain the cosmos without a god, I think it's a cop-out to accept that cosmology simply because a better one hasn't taken its place. I prefer the view that man has no idea, and that we've only begun to scratch the surface. And of course, you get into those "Who created God?" debates, which end with maddeningly fallacial arguments. If nothing can come without God, something had to make him, otherwise, the whole argument seems silly. If nothing comes from nothing, something created the creator, who in turn had a creator, who has his own creator, and on and on...

But fear not, good Doctor, as it seems to be beyond my powers of reasoning to convince you of the invalidity of Christianity. I can't help but give it a try, though. But first, one must be able to shift their perceptions and view it as an outsider looking in. I think I will put together that article on the real teachings of Jesus, just as soon as I finish this book I am reading, as it promises a few insights I may be able to use. You might be suprised to finsd that Jesus' true church wanted nothing to do with the literal interpretation of the ressurrection, which was an invention by people who had never met him, especially Paul. Traditional Christians would surely frown on his teachings on sex, which he considered sacred (although with a single partner, he was no slut). He also proposed that people seek out knowledge of Life, the Universe, and Evrything. So in my own way, I suppose I am Christian, in that I follow the religion of the true Jesus. But in order to wear the lable of Christian, I would have to follow the mock-up version of him proposed by the Catholics and adopted by all the Protestants.

Hehe...we're crossing threads...

The Gospel of Thomas' historical validity comes from the New Testament. There are entire sections of the Synoptic Gospels where the story ceases to flow, but instead we see seemingly random parables thrown in, coming from Jesus' mouth. Those very sections are paralleled in Thomas. Thomas is simply a collection of the sayings of Jesus. The scholarly concensus is that Thomas predates all of the Gospels. In fact, a few denominations have even added it to their canon. I'll quote a few lines from Thomas here, and I'm sure you can think of a similar line in one or more of the Synoptics:

"If a blind man leads a blind man, they will both fall into a pit."

"Among those born of women, from Adam until John the Baptist, there is no one superior to John the Baptist that his eyes should not be lowered (before him). Yet I have said, whichever one of you comes to be a child will be acquainted with the kingdom and will become superior to John."

"Blessed are the poor, for ours is the kingdom of heaven."

"Show me the stone which the builders have rejected. That one is the cornerstone."

"They showed Jesus a gold coin and said to him, 'Ceasar's men demand taxes from us.' He said to them, 'Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, give God what belongs to God, and give me what is mine.'"

Of course, that last line would be considered heretical, as it shows seperation between Jesus and God. There are a few other gnostic elements in Thomas, which is why most denominations rejected the book.

Timeline: Jesus is crucified and laid in the tomb before evening (Friday of the Passion Week). On Sunday morning, several women go to the tomb. They find the tomb empty and the stone rolled away (which, incidentally, could have been done by human hands -- since Jewish tombs were meant to be used several times, it would be illogical to put a stone over it that couldn't be moved -- it's just that the stone was large enough that it would have taken several men to move it). Somewhere in here, an angel tells the women that Jesus is alive. The women go back to the disciples and Jesus appears to them. He then makes several more appearances in Galilee, appears to large groups of people, and ascends into Heaven after forty days. I know I've left out some of the individual appearances, but these are the facts that you just can't dispute. Just because a Gospel has one appearance that the others don't doesn't mean that they're conflicting. If you like, I can put together a more complete timeline later, but right now, I just want to get the basics out.

Yes, you've covered the missing body in your article, but the arguments don't hold up. Jesus was most decidedly dead when he was pulled off the cross, so he didn't walk out. Even if he had miraculously survived, he would have been in no shape to inspire a worldwide religion. The disciples didn't take his body. Their reactions when Jesus was arrested (as in they all deserted him) show that they were not the most devoted of followers, so they wouldn't have risked their lives for a lie. Eleven of the Twelve were martyred for their faith. Do you honestly think that they would have died for something that they knew was not true?

Quite frankly (and I know I'm going to step on toes here), to flat out dismiss God as unthinkable is illogical. It is the height of arrogance to say that, because I can't put God in a test tube, he cannot exist. You admit that man has only scratched the surface of knowledge, but you won't even consider the fact that God might be a part of that untapped knowledge.

I've already addressed the 'Who created God?' question elsewhere. Bottom line: to say that God must logically have had a creator is illogical in that God exists outside of logic. Very simple.

I would guess that the 'real teachings of Jesus' that you're talking about have something to do with New Testament apocryphal books and the Jesus Seminar. I've always found it interesting how people are very ready to accept the absolute truth of books like the Gospel of Thomas (assuming that it has the type of teachings that they want to find) -- books that were declared wrong centuries ago -- over the authority of books that have been affirmed and reaffirmed through 2000 years of use.

I'd better stop there for now. I'll continue later on.

The people who have rejected those books are not the fair-minded theologians you would like to believe, they are the ones who have the most to lose if the Church's foundations were to crumble. In the words of Pope Leo X: "It has served us well, this myth of Christ."

As for the martyrdom, how's this for a theory: One of the tenets of Jesus' cult was levels of initiation into deepr secrets of Life, the Universe, and Everything. In the gnostic gospels, we can see that not all of Jesus' disciples had been initiated into the inner circle; in fact, only Mary appears to have been, who is, incidentally, the 13th disciple so often mentioned. Therefore, only a secret few knew the truth about Jesus' escape, and the rest were allowed to believe what they would.

You say that eleven were martyred, I am rather curious about who the unmartyred might be. I have no idea myself, but I would venture to guess that it was Thomas, or possibly Phillip, based on the gnostics.

Anyway, who is to say the stories were not tampered with? There is ample evidence of the church destroying records, of editing the Bible, and even of forging documents (The Donation of Constantine and a history by Josephus which gives a glowing account of Jesus among them). Why would they not have turned members of the splinter group of Christianity known as Gnostics into martyrs of Christianity?

As for decidedly dead, please give me one good reason why I should expect he is dead. I have offered my argument, I would like to hear yours. As far as inspiring a religion, that was all done without his participation, so he could skulk off to wherever he chose.

God exists outside of logic. Not enough of an answer for me. It seems to me that a God who created logic would find himself represented in every facet of it. But this is an argument ddomed to trace circles, so I'll abandon it now.

I don't accept the Gnostic Gospels as absolute truth any more than I do those of the New Testament. However, I find them incredibly valuable as documents describing the teachings of Jesus which have not fallen victim to the censors. It doesn't mean I've sudenly become a believer in the God described therein any more than the one of the Bible. But as a vehicle for arriving at the truth, it is precious beyond belief.

There are a lot of reasons for saying that Jesus was quite dead after the crucifixion. I'm doing this from memory, so forgive me if I can't remember all of the details.

To set the stage: Jesus was in bad shape before he even went on the cross. The night before, he presumably had little or no sleep, and he was under such stress that he appeared to sweat blood. This is an actual medical condition (I can't think of the name of it) that can happen at times of extreme stress. What happens is that the capillaries running through the face burst, allowing a small amount of blood to seep out through the sweat glands. This would have made Jesus' skin extremely fragile and sensitive. After he was arrested, Jesus was marched all around the city to the different officials' houses (which is, by my understanding, a considerable distance overall). He was then beaten and flogged.

It is important that you understand what happened in a Roman flogging. There are ancient accounts that decribe how a flogging victim's back would be reduced to nothing more than ribbons of flesh. The Romans would use strips of leather braided together, often with bits of bone or metal added in for good measure. Basically, a soldier could flog someone for as long as he wanted. After the flogging and beatings, Jesus would have been on very bad shape -- his body would have been entering into hypovolemic shock, which is brought on by an extreme loss of blood and other body fluids.

Jesus was then crucified. I have heard on several occasions that crucifixion is just about the most horrible death imaginable. The soldiers would have driven nails through his forearms (just above the wrists) and his ankles. (By the way, archaeologists have found skeletons of crucifixion victims with the nails still in their ankles.) When the cross was assembled in the upright position, Jesus' body weight would have pulled the nails through his arms until they locked between the bones of his forearms. His chest would have been forced into the inhaled position, meaning that he would have had to stand on the nails in his ankles every time he wanted to breathe, during which process his shredded back would have been scraped against the wood of the cross. During this time, he would have been bleeding through his multiple wounds, furthering his hypovolemic shock. Eventually, his heart would have started palpitating as it tried to pump the blood that wasn't there, which would have clued Jesus in that his death was near. He then died from blood loss, asphyxiation, and cardiac arrest. Furthermore, he sustained a spear wound from the Romans after his death, ensuring that he was truly dead.

Now, even if you refuse to accept the piles of medical evidence, you at least have to admit that the Roman soldiers knew death when they saw it. They had no choice. They would have been executed if they had made a mistake and allowed Jesus to escape.

1. Just because he's sleepy, doesn't mean he's going to die.

2. I've never heard of the medical condition that you describe, and I must admit to finding it just a bit ludicrous. And one would have thought that such an amazing occurence would have merited some mention by the writers of the gospels.

3. The flogging is rather well documented in the Bible. It doesn't fit your description in any detail. They whacked him upside the head with a stick, and placed a crown of thorns on his head, which was more for mockery's sake than to cause any real damage.

4. Jesus was not nailed to the cross. You say they've found victims with their ankles nailed, but nothing about wrists. And nails in the wrists would directly contradict a few lines in John where he details his injuries. Incidentally, nowhere in the Bible is there any even vague mention about nails through the ankles.

5. Drugs causing a catatonic state which resembled death were known to civilization as early as 3500 BC, when they were used in a ceremony that was supposed to send the new pharaoh to the world of the dead, where his spirit would become infused with the spirit of Horus. These drugs would have been widely known during Jesus' time, especially as Jesus spent time in Egypt. They would have been more than enough to fool an ordinary centurion.

Your "piles of medical evidence" don't exist. Not to mention the fact that, in John, Pontius Pilate is incredulous that Jesus could have died so soon. This is why he has the spear wound...and I've already made a strong case about the spear wound being an afterthought, an invention by the writer of John.

I'll tell you what -- let me know when you're willing to conduct a respectful and open-minded discussion, and I'll be happy to continue in this forum. Unless you are willing to consider that I might have some idea of what I'm talking about, you're wasting my time. I'm not trying to insult you, but I really don't think that anything that I say will convince you of anything other than what you've already accepted.

I accept your rebuke, as it appears my rhetoric was starting to get away from me.

However, it seems to me that, rather than making a dispassionate and open-minded inquiry into the nature of Christianity, you have begun from a set of assumptions, and gone looking for evidence that supports those assumptions. So my point here is that neither of us appears to be very open-minded at the moment, so let's just agree to disagree, and call the whole thing off.

The seemingly-ludicrous medical condition that Doctor Smith referred to is called "hemihidrosis."

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