Lewis's Trilemma

[The Gentleman Atheist]

i am, in a sense, secretly happy with this situation because i do enjoy our occasional chats--even though one could wish that you did feel empowered to choose a different path than the one you have instinctually taken.

Yes, thank you Mr. Ephraimanesti. I do appreciate that you show such unselfish concern for me. However, our conversation has gone hopelessly off the rails here. If you could please save this thread for the topic at hand, you may use my "Introducing myself…" thread to make direct comments on my person and philosophy.

Thanking you.

The Gentleman Atheist

 

[The Gentleman Atheist]

Dear Chesterton,

Well but you are saying that by implication.

I feel that this may be due to a mere failure of rhetoric, or as Rousseau so eloquently put it, "the poverty of language." I intended no implication of this nature, and mean exactly what I have written here. Nothing is tacit.

He fulfilled an idea that some people had already had.

Not at all what I have meant, dear sir. I was referring to incarnations of the virgin-borne resurrected god-man. There are many, many examples of this. To save us some time and space, we might concentrate on a couple of the best known of this lot.

The myth of Horus, in comparison to the Galilean messiah, can be examined by viewing the chart on this page, which is continued on the chart on this page. The whole article may be started at this page.

The myth of Krishna, in comparison to the Galilean messiah, can be examined by viewing the information on this page. Sadly it is not as neatly organized as the Horus chart. This page does organize it nicely in a chart, but I find some of his facts to be suspect when compared to other research. It is also not as gentlemanly composed as the the previous link that I offer, so please read at your discretion.

So you're saying the supernatural acts didn't happen; that they were lies?

Yes, this is what I am saying. As my moniker suggests, I am an atheist.

It seems an extremely difficult task on the face of it. That's why I asked for specifics. For example, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said "blessed are the peacemakers". Even if I don't live by it, I recognize it's a beautiful idea, but in the same sermon, Jesus said he was the Lord who would judge men's souls at their death, which (unless you're a very, very good person) really isn't a beautiful idea. So I'd like to know, did Jesus say the one and not the other, or both, or what exactly?

and then

The Sermon on the Mount is in Matthew chapters 5-7. The part I think you're asking about is in chapter 7 verses 21-23:
"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity."

I believe perhaps it has been Ephraim's mischievous interferences here, but I seem to have lost the thread of your argument here. What was it again that you are trying to prove with this quote?

I am hoping that this information proves useful to you.

The Gentleman Atheist

 

[_JJM]

In regard to the supposed parallels between Jesus and Horus, it was not mentioned that Horus had the head of a bird. Very similar indeed.

Surely we can come up with something better in the effort to debunk Christianity than to compare Jesus with a bird god of Egypt or the Hindu Krishna. We can all do a quick Google search and find that these touted "striking" similarities between Jesus and these pagan gods are highly suspect as they are obviously embellished by those who would like to discredit the Lord.

 

[Chesterton]

Dear Chesterton,
I feel that this may be due to a mere failure of rhetoric, or as Rousseau so eloquently put it, "the poverty of language." I intended no implication of this nature, and mean exactly what I have written here. Nothing is tacit.

Oh dear. I fear you may be seeking to lead me down the tortuous path of epistemology.

You say "we can't determine which words are Jesus' and which are counterfeits", and that certainly does imply that you believe some statements at least could be counterfeit. The trilemma asks "Lord, liar or lunatic?", and you are suggesting a fourth option ("somebody else lied"), but seem unwilling to posit it outright. If your position is that you don't know what Jesus said, then you're leaving open the possibility that Jesus said everything he's reported as saying, right? And if you admit that possibility, then you are admitting the possibility that he was telling the truth and is Lord. That might a tenable position for someone who identifies himself as agnostic, but it doesn't seem to be for an atheist.

So I'm unsure how to proceed here. I really can't argue with your beliefs unless I know what they are.

Not at all what I have meant, dear sir. I was referring to incarnations of the virgin-borne resurrected god-man. There are many, many examples of this. To save us some time and space, we might concentrate on a couple of the best known of this lot.

The myth of Horus, in comparison to the Galilean messiah, can be examined by viewing the chart on this page, which is continued on the chart on this page. The whole article may be started at this page.

The claims presented in the chart range from very liberal interpretation to outright fabrication. Virtually all the ideas about similarities between Horus and Jesus came from the imagination of Gerald Massey, a 19th century spiritualist. His ideas are dismissed by experts, but continue to be trotted out by people with an anti-Christian agenda. Even Wikipedia says he was a "self-styled Egyptologist", and that "His work, which draws comparisons between the Judeo-Christian religion and the Egyptian religion, is not considered significant in the field of modern Egyptology and is not mentioned in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt or any other work of modern Egyptology." Further, it says "W. Ward Gasque has written that Egyptologists have rejected many of the specific claims made by Massey as fallacious: for example saying that there is no evidence of a virgin birth for Horus." At the bottom of the Wiki entry, you'll also notice he's placed in the category ""Pseudoscientists".

The myth of Krishna, in comparison to the Galilean messiah, can be examined by viewing the information on this page. Sadly it is not as neatly organized as the Horus chart. This page does organize it nicely in a chart, but I find some of his facts to be suspect when compared to other research. It is also not as gentlemanly composed as the the previous link that I offer, so please read at your discretion.

Again, old, bad information from a bad source. As noted in the article itself, this information is based on another 19th century amateur with an agenda, Kersey Graves. You should also read the Wiki entry for Graves, which says about his Christ/pagan ideas that "...modern scholarship has cast serious doubt on the veracity of such claims, and demonstrated that Graves' scholarship is deficient. Graves massaged his data to fit his thesis, and where he had no data he falsified it."

And the few vague similarities with Krishna which actually do exist, appear for the first time in Hinduism from the 4th to the 11th centuries after Christ, so if there was any borrowing, it was Hinduism which borrowed.

Yes, this is what I am saying. As my moniker suggests, I am an atheist.

Why do you think they made that stuff up?

I believe perhaps it has been Ephraim's mischievous interferences here, but I seem to have lost the thread of your argument here. What was it again that you are trying to prove with this quote?

Sorry, I seemed to have lost my train of thought; I don't know either. It had something to do with what we are talking about above - that Jesus made statements indicating his divinity. But never mind.

 

[ephraimanesti]

I believe perhaps it has been Ephraim's mischievous interferences here, but I seem to have lost the thread of your argument here. What was it again that you are trying to prove with this quote?

MEA CULPA, MEA CULPA, MEA MAXIMA CULPA!​

ephraim

 

[The Gentleman Atheist]

In regard to the supposed parallels between Jesus and Horus, it was not mentioned that Horus had the head of a bird. Very similar indeed.

Surely we can come up with something better in the effort to debunk Christianity than to compare Jesus with a bird god of Egypt or the Hindu Krishna. We can all do a quick Google search and find that these touted "striking" similarities between Jesus and these pagan gods are highly suspect as they are obviously embellished by those who would like to discredit the Lord.

Before you mock the Egyptian god for having the head of a bird, remember that your god had the head of a man. How silly is that!

The resources that I have supplied contain a very adequate description of the weaknesses of some of these arguments, and indeed they identify which may have been embellished by the detractors of christianity. I used these resources in particular, so that we would not have to have this conversation. I think that the links do show us that – despite the touting of the anti-theist set – there is indeed honest research that shows a very valid comparison. In the interest of forwarding our conversation in a productive direction, I ask that you speak to this subject, and not make evasions with materials that I have taken pains to address already.

Thanking you,

The Gentleman Atheist

 

[The Gentleman Atheist]

You say "we can't determine which words are Jesus' and which are counterfeits", and that certainly does imply that you believe some statements at least could be counterfeit. The trilemma asks "Lord, liar or lunatic?", and you are suggesting a fourth option ("somebody else lied"), but seem unwilling to posit it outright. If your position is that you don't know what Jesus said, then you're leaving open the possibility that Jesus said everything he's reported as saying, right? And if you admit that possibility, then you are admitting the possibility that he was telling the truth and is Lord. That might a tenable position for someone who identifies himself as agnostic, but it doesn't seem to be for an atheist.

So I'm unsure how to proceed here. I really can't argue with your beliefs unless I know what they are.

Hmm... you may be correct – if we take this tack, however, the agnostic principle would apply equally to yourself. Really, what evidence do we have that any of the words of the bible have or have not been altered by interested parties?

Let me address my beliefs in answer to your "Why" question, below.

The claims presented in the chart range from very liberal interpretation to outright fabrication. Virtually all the ideas about similarities between Horus and Jesus came from the imagination of Gerald Massey, a 19th century spiritualist. His ideas are dismissed by experts, but continue to be trotted out by people with an anti-Christian agenda. Even Wikipedia says he was a "self-styled Egyptologist", and that "His work, which draws comparisons between the Judeo-Christian religion and the Egyptian religion, is not considered significant in the field of modern Egyptology and is not mentioned in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt or any other work of modern Egyptology." Further, it says "W. Ward Gasque has written that Egyptologists have rejected many of the specific claims made by Massey as fallacious: for example saying that there is no evidence of a virgin birth for Horus." At the bottom of the Wiki entry, you'll also notice he's placed in the category ""Pseudoscientists".//

Again, old, bad information from a bad source. As noted in the article itself, this information is based on another 19th century amateur with an agenda, Kersey Graves. You should also read the Wiki entry for Graves, which says about his Christ/pagan ideas that "...modern scholarship has cast serious doubt on the veracity of such claims, and demonstrated that Graves' scholarship is deficient. Graves massaged his data to fit his thesis, and where he had no data he falsified it."//

And the few vague similarities with Krishna which actually do exist, appear for the first time in Hinduism from the 4th to the 11th centuries after Christ, so if there was any borrowing, it was Hinduism which borrowed.

Yes, as addressed in my response to Masquelier, I note that there are controvertible theories on the matter. If you wish a better source from among their contemporaries, I might point you to James Frazer or Jane Harrison.

I would rather that we not waste time trying to prove or disprove that a dying-and-rising god mytheme existed before, after, or in tandem with the Galilean messiah. As with Mr. Masquelier, I ask that you please address the fact that dying-and-rising god myths so accurately parallel the story of the Galilean messiah.

Why do you think they made that stuff up?

A corporation of people is profoundly stronger than one person. The church becomes a political force when it unites all christians under one mandate. There have to be some four million or so christians. That is quite a political body with which all of our lives may be influenced and our destinies (if you will) altered to the will of those who make decisions within the church. Consider the land issue in the early days of the church in England. They became as great a landowner as the King himself. The church in Rome has a city, which is entirely a castle, and even a standing army. This seems like motivation enough, do you not think so?

Certainly though, do not take my word for it – for I am a godless infidel, am I not? – Allow me to quote from one of your own reformers, M. Rousseau (my, I do find myself quoting him a lot on this forum) who said, "…religion and politics have the same purpose among men; it is simply that at the birth of nations, the one serves as the instrument of the other." (B. II, C. 7, SC, translated to the greater language, of course.)

Please let me know if I have left any of your questions unanswered. I find myself rudely rushing off this response between the obligations of travel.

The Gentleman Atheist

 

[Steve Petersen]

No, it does not stand up. He artificially limits the options.

There is at least one other option: Words were put in Jesus' mouth by others.

 

[Chesterton]

Yes, as addressed in my response to Masquelier, I note that there are controvertible theories on the matter. If you wish a better source from among their contemporaries, I might point you to James Frazer or Jane Harrison.

I would rather that we not waste time trying to prove or disprove that a dying-and-rising god mytheme existed before, after, or in tandem with the Galilean messiah. As with Mr. Masquelier, I ask that you please address the fact that dying-and-rising god myths so accurately parallel the story of the Galilean messiah.

If I think Christianity is the truth about reality, I can accept that there is truth in any other religions or philosophies where they agree with Christianity. If other peoples had stories about a dying-and-rising god, it means that they were in touch with a fundamental truth about reality; for all I know they were hinting at the coming of the Messiah for all mankind. But even if you disbelieve Christ, the dying god stories are undeniably in touch with some truth about reality - they reflect the seasons - the death of Winter and the re-birth of Spring, and the processes of life on Earth.

So basically, arguments pro and con are a wash: you can say people were expressing something they observed about the natural world, but I reply yes, of course they were, and God created this same world, so I could almost expect God's grand theme of redemption of the world (which actually happened through Christ) to take place in a manner in accordance with the nature of the world He created.

I guess you're mentioning this stuff as a round-a-bout way of answering my earlier question. You're saying the disciples lied. On the face of it that sounds implausible, so that's why I'd like to ask you why you think they would have.

A corporation of people is profoundly stronger than one person. The church becomes a political force when it unites all christians under one mandate. There have to be some four million or so christians. That is quite a political body with which all of our lives may be influenced and our destinies (if you will) altered to the will of those who make decisions within the church. Consider the land issue in the early days of the church in England. They became as great a landowner as the King himself. The church in Rome has a city, which is entirely a castle, and even a standing army. This seems like motivation enough, do you not think so?

Certainly though, do not take my word for it – for I am a godless infidel, am I not? – Allow me to quote from one of your own reformers, M. Rousseau (my, I do find myself quoting him a lot on this forum) who said, "…religion and politics have the same purpose among men; it is simply that at the birth of nations, the one serves as the instrument of the other." (B. II, C. 7, SC, translated to the greater language, of course.)

Please let me know if I have left any of your questions unanswered. I find myself rudely rushing off this response between the obligations of travel.

My question asked why the disciples of Jesus lied about him. You've skipped ahead 4 or 5 centuries. It's your thread, and I'll discuss the above if you like, but personally I'd prefer to stay on topic for now. Obviously the first Christians did not achieve political power in Rome or Brittania for inventing a new god; Christians were a criminal class for over 300 years. (And the official charge was "Atheism". Oh, the indignity! )

 

[AlexBP]

In any case, this thread was about Lewis. Does the myth argument seem valid to you?

I realize that I'm arriving a little bit late to the party. I had never visited this particular sub-forum until yesterday. I will try to answer your original question directly. First just let me express my appreciation for the contributions you've made here and for your dedication to remaining polite even when things get heated. If we had more peoplpe like you, the board and the planet would be a much nicer place.

Personally I love C. S. Lewis. I find his fiction brilliant and his non-fiction even more brilliant. As for the particular subject of this thread, I agree with it in outline, though it's probably not the first thing I'd bring up if I were debating the divinity of Jesus. The thing is, if I recall correctly, Lewis was a chaplain during WWII. He gave sermons to men who would shortly be fighting the Germans and who might be dead in a few days or hours. In those circumstances he needed an argument that was short and clear, not a treatise that covered every possible detail. However I have found the basic argument to stand up to scrutiny.

If I were arguing it, I would begin with two facts:

Fact 1: Jesus made changes to the Laws of Moses.

Fact 2: Jesus forgave sins.

Now why do I classify these as facts? Because every source that we have about Jesus agrees on these facts. All four gospels agree, the epistles agree, the early martyrs and church fathers whose writing we have agree, and the best historical analysis that we have agrees. While I acknowledge the possibility that some stories, parables, and quotes attributed to Jesus may have been made up by his followers or copied from other sources, I think these two facts are so central to everything we know about Jesus that they can't be entirely false. Moreover they not only appear in all our sources, but they appear frequently in all our sources, and if they were removed the entire narrative would be senseless. It was Jesus' willingness to change laws and forgive sins that set up the main conflict with the authorities that is the centerpiece of the gospel story.

So why are these two facts so important? To answer that, we need to understand the difference between how law and sin are understood in our time vs. that time. Today laws exist and they're important to us. However, we acknowledge them as a human creation. In the USA our highest law is the Constitution and there are various levels below that. Other countries have other systems. Now if we met someone who says "murder should be legal" or "the speed limit should be lowered to 20 miles per hour", we might find those beliefs a little odd. However, we acknowledge that it's both legal and intellectually reasonable to have opinions about laws.

Among the Jews of the 2nd Temple period, the law was not a human institution. They believed that the Law had come directly from God by way of Moses. This Law was central to everything they did, from food and clothing to family arrangements to justice to prayer to ceremony to holidays to anything else. The Law was so central to everything in Jewish life that it took on a massive, overwhelming presence for the Jews of that period. N. T. Wright has described it as a physical presence, something so huge that a typical Jew was barely able to question the Law.

Similarly, the understanding of sin has changed. Today we think of sin as something wrong that we do and then feel guilty about. A sin may trouble a person's consciousness from time to time, but we generally understand that we can choose to pay as much or as little attention to sins as we choose.

For Jews of the 2nd Temple period, acknowledgment of sin was not optional. When they committed a sin, the awareness of that sin stuck around them. They could not make it go away by not thinking about it. It was real to them, like Socrates' Daemon. The only way to remove sins was by the procedures given in the Pentateuch: animals sacrifices, ritual cleaning, days or weeks of isolation, and so forth.

So when Jesus showed up and started telling people that he had altered the law and forgiven sins, he was not merely expressing ordinary opinions, nor even quirky ideas outside the mainstream of Jewish thought. He was, rather, making claims that from the perspective of the Jews at that time were nonsense. He was changing parts of their reality that simply could not be changed. Small surprise that many of the people who heard him thought that either he had gone crazy or that he was working for the devil. In short, that is one of the two logical explanations for the things that Jesus was saying. If he believed that he single-handedly had the authority to rip apart what had been the basis of Jewish society for many centuries, something that no contemporary Jew would even have considered, then either he had lost his marbles or he actually did have that authority.