[extropy-chat] Athiest perspectives...

[spike]

Great stuff Robert, thanks!

 

One could make a terrific little party game with this quiz, especially 

if you have a churchy crowd.  Make up the quiz to be automatic scoring

software, then have the people come in, type their name, then take the

quiz.  Afterwards have the software calculate the scores and create a

printout.  The gag is this: fix it to where the local heathen philistine
(that

would be me) gets a perfect score, regardless of what he answers, and

everyone else gets a big goose egg.  {8^D  Wouldn't that be a kick!

 

Nowthen, here is my insight.  I mentioned before that I was a theology

major in a fundamentalist christian school of thought during my tragically 

misspent youth.  I was already aware that the synoptic gospels (Matthew,
Mark and

Luke) are in reasonably good agreement until one hits the whole crucifixion

misadventure and the subsequent resurrection.  I was puzzled about that

at the time, but with my current perspective it makes sense: the synoptics
were 

more or less eyewitness accounts for the early years, but after the

crucifixion every writer was on his own to make up his own version of

the story.

 

In case anyone is still reading, I will offer the gospel according to spike:

 

Jesus ran afoul of not the Roman authorities, but rather the Jewish
religious

leaders, especially the Pharisees and zealots.   They were the ones who

arranged to get him arrested.  If you read the stories, it is clear that the

Romans couldn't see any crime and tried everything they could to release

the guy.  Fearing a riot by the Jews, they agreed to have him crucified, but

being decent sorts, they arranged with the executioners to use the

"special" whip, a de-leaded cat-o-nine-tails, which would create a bloody

mess of one's back that would certainly look impressive but would not

create any lethal wounds.  They gave him a good old fashioned country

ass-whooping, hung him on the cross, waited until the crowd went away, 

told him to play dead, took him down, whispered to him to get on

outta Dodge and don't come back.  Friends such as Joseph of

Aramathea helped him escape.  He probably kept a low profile for

a while, then after a time to heal, visited with his old friends, who would

have considered it completely unimaginable, a physically impossible outcome,


for anyone to actually survive a Roman crucifixion.  So they had to go back 

after the fact and piece together some kind of theory to explain what must
have

happened.  A new religion was born, amen. 

 

spike

 

  _____  

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Robert Bradbury
Sent: Saturday, April 15, 2006 11:37 AM
To: ExICh
Subject: [extropy-chat] Athiest perspectives...

 

Some of you may be interested in the Easter Quiz posted 4/12/06 by Stephen
F. Roberts on his blog.

http://core.wildlink.com/index.php

I ran across a quote from him (which I added to my quotes page) when
googling for something completely different (ext2 file system drivers for
Windows XP)... 

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than
you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you
will understand why I dismiss yours."

Robert

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