Light sensors cause religious row

[OldLadyKnowsNothing]

Story here.

Maybe they should just move?

Yes, went back and saw you meant Olympe.
'She had another name'... so she's de-regged before?

Last seen having some erudite battle over Leviticus quotes with Lucia, in fact, which I didn't bother reading, as I know that no debate can ever be improved, let alone resolved, by the throwing around of bible quotes.

I did see a lot of people reading insults where none were intended though. In fact the immoderate language used on the first page was mostly by people who posted and ran. Since then the thread has veered in and out of the world of sensible debating, with the occasional detour into 'You insulted me', 'No I didn't, you insulted me!'
I've just re-read (well, scanned) the whole bloody thread, and I can't see anyone being rude to her. Alright, she got frustrated, but if you engage in a debate, it's possible that the other person will fail/refuse to see your point of view and you will get frustrated.

So don't try to guilt me by giving me a lecture on real people getting hurt and those nasty atheists not caring.

Actually, may I defend the men please? I had forgotten that onager was a man anyway, but I seriously don't think their gender has anything to do with this debate. I've had much more insulting debates with woman, where I've been personally attacked and patronised.

I don't think I've experienced any of those on this thread. It has been very interesting and it's a shame that it's now disintegrated into an attack on gender and an argument about what defines an insult.

Besides, as religious people, aren't we supposed to forgive and forget?

Now to Lucia - interesting thoughts there. However the argument seems to be not as to whether Jesus was mentioned by Josephus, as it is almost universally acknowledged that he did, but as to whether this entry was tampered with by Christians to put Jesus in a better light.

My main argument was that Jesus did, in fact, exist, not as to whether he was the Son of God. That is a different argument.

Apologies for the length, but I thought you would find this interesting:

It is not the purpose of this article to address the arguments of the few commentators - mostly Jesus Mythologists - who doubt the authenticity of the second reference. According to leading Josephus scholar Louis H. Feldman, the authenticity of this passage "has been almost universally acknowledged" by scholars. (Feldman, "Josephus," Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 3, pages 990-91). Instead, this article focuses on arguments regarding the partial authenticity of the TF.

Although Josephus' reference to the martyrdom of James is universally accepted by critical scholars, there has been more controversy over the fuller reference to Jesus. The TF contains some obvious Christian glosses that no Jew would have written; such as "he was the Christ" and "he appeared to them alive again the third day."

A strong majority of scholars, however, have concluded that much of the TF is authentic to Josephus. In his book Josephus and Modern Scholarship, Professor Feldman reports that between 1937 to 1980, of 52 scholars reviewing the subject, 39 found portions of the TF to be authentic. Peter Kirby's own review of the literature, in an article discussing the TF in depth, shows that the trend in modern scholarship has moved even more dramatically towards partial authenticity: "In my own reading of thirteen books since 1980 that touch upon the passage, ten out of thirteen argue the Testimonium to be partly genuine, while the other three maintain it to be entirely spurious. Coincidentally, the same three books also argue that Jesus did not exist." (Kirby, Testamonium Flavianum, 2001). Though my own studies have revealed a similar trend (about 15 to 1 for partial authenticity, with the exception being a Jesus Mythologist), I do not believe that it is a coincidence that it is Jesus Mythologists who are carrying the water against the partial authenticity theory. Even the partial validity of this one passage is enough to sink their entire argument.

Notably, the consensus for partial authenticity is held by scholars from diverse perspectives. Liberal commentators such as Robert Funk, J. Dominic Crossan, and A.N. Wilson, accept a substantial part of the TF as originally Josephan. So do Jewish scholars, such as Geza Vermes, Louis H. Feldman, and Paul Winter and secular scholars such as E.P. Sanders and Paula Fredrikson. Even Jeff Lowder, co-founder of the Secular Web, recognizes the merits of the partial authenticity theory. (Lowder, Josh McDowell's Evidence for Jesus: Is it Reliable? 2000). Paula Fredrikson sums up the state of the question among scholars: "Most scholars currently incline to see the passage as basically authentic, with a few later insertions by Christian scribes." (Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, page 249).

Those scholars who accept the "partial authenticity" theory conclude that - at a minimum - something similar to the following reconstruction of the TF was likely original to Book 18:

"At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of people who receive the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following among many Jews and among many of Gentile origin. And when Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him previously did not cease to do so. And up until this very day the tribe of Christians (named after him) had not died out."

This article can be seen in it's entirety here

The article actually concludes that Josephus was indeed, the author of those paragraphs.

Oh and I LOVED the Life of Brian!

Well hopefully she will calm down, reread the thread and see no-one was getting at her. Unless there was some real venom in the trading of biblical quotes/historical sources, which, as I said, I've skipped.

The 'I'm going away for ever and you'll all be sorry' just kind of pressed my buttons for various reasons.

There was a fair bit of insulting before I joined in the discussion, but I do object to my name being bandied about as one of those insulted, I think if I'd felt insulted I would have said so at the time.

Picking on UQD and onager by Swedes "Am I being unreasonable to believe this thread would have been more interesting and respectful were it not for the two pricks men on this thread?" is downright disgusting and should have been reported. If you don't have the intelligence to come up with a sensible reply, then just don't bother. Contribute to the baby name threads instead.

at massive implied insult to contributors to baby name threads...

Rhubarb - I like the baby name threads -you can call a spade a spade there. Feel free to report my post but I'm staggered that you found my post insulting, disgusting and sexist but you "LOVED Life of Brian".

btw it's Swedes here

I'm staggered that you are staggered!

I didn't say your post was sexist, you've just said that. It was personally insulting to both onager and UQD who were, until you showed up, having a very reasoned and interesting discussion with myself and others.

What boggles me about people insisting that various superstitions be 'respected' is that they always mean 'MINE and no one else's.' Where do you expect the line to be drawn? When some of the bigger and more popular superstitions have adherents who really do want to do damaging things to other people or insist on unreasonable conditions (the ever-popular 'how dare you insult my superstition?' as a way of silencing those who speak out about abuse from priests/cult leaders), why are (for instance) vaudun followers liable to be in serious trouble if they want to behead a chicken in the back garden?

Rhubarb: "Actually, may I defend the men please? I had forgotten that onager was a man anyway, but I seriously don't think their gender has anything to do with this debate. I've had much more insulting debates with woman, where I've been personally attacked and patronised."

Sorry I took your post (above) to mean that you thought there was some sort of sexism thing going on. But perhaps you routinely ask "May I defend the men please?"

Surely we are allowed to behead chickens in our own back gardens?

growing up: I think the first thing that needs to be established is I never claimed that the TF was a forgery. I wrote that "[it]is generally considered to be spurious and in all probability represents a later Christian redaction or interpolation of this historian's original narrative".

I then went on to explain the differences in two separate early Christian texts produced within a hundred or so years of each other and offer some explanation as to why Josephus could not have written the [later] account that has come down to us via Eusebius.

Rhubarb: Reading back through my posts I have never suggested that Josephus didn't refer to Jesus, the brother of James. What I discussed is that Josephus didn't recognise this person as the Christ, as Origen's later commentary on Mathew demonstrates. You have to remember that Christus is a politico/religious title and not a surname.

Hence somewhere between Origen reading Josephus and making his observation and Eusebius's comments on Book XVIII of Antiquities some person(s) redacted or interpolated something into Josephus's text.

There are basically 3 schools of thought on this piece of text.

Firstly there is a small minority who suggest it is absolutely authentic and is directly from the hand of Josephus. Secondly, there are scholars who hold to the opinion that the entire piece is a much later interpolation. Thirdly, there are scholars who consider that something was written by Josephus but this was later redacted to imply that Josephus himself, believed this person to the Christ.

M.I. Finley wrote in his introductory essay in: "Josephus the Jewish War and Other Selections from Flavius Josephus" (New English Library, 1966):

"Finally there is the special problem of Josephus and the Christians about which many more words have been wasted in futile controversy than the subject warrants. There are exactly three references to anything Christian in the Greek text, all in the [Jewish] Antiquities: XVIII, iii,3 [the Testimonium Flavianum], XVIII, v, 2 [dealing with the execution of John the Baptist by Herod Antipas], and XX, ix,1 [the arrest and execution of James, the brother of Jesus]. There is nothing surprising in Josephus's lack of interest in Christianity, even to the extent of not mentioning the Neronic persecution of 64, the year of his first visit to Rome. It is only from hindsight that the new religion acquires such importance as to create the illusion that it must already have earned the serious attention of a Jewish historian writing towards the end of the first century. [...] And Josephus we remember, was persistently silent about, and hostile to, all Messianic ideas. On the other hand, it is equally puzzling why anyone should have thought casual references in Josephus important, as so many commentators have. They contribute nothing to our knowledge unless one needs persuading that there was a John the Baptist, that there was a Jesus Christ (who had a brother named James), and that they were executed."

In my opinion, whilst Finley's comments were published over 40 years ago, his assessment of these facts still carries considerable weight.

Rhubarb - re "Ah, now my dh is an agnostic. It's a belief in God, but a refusal to follow any particular faith."

With all due respect, that is not at all what the word "agnostic" means.

Agnostic is someone who does NOT believe in God UNTIL there is any evidence for His existence. Similarly, he is not an atheist either, until some evidence crops up that he doesn't exist. In short, an agnostic is someone who recognizes that there is no real evidence either way and that the whole argument is an exercise in futility.

Your DH is a deist - someone who believes in God but not in any particular religion.

If you spend time looking at all the definitions of the variety of faiths and non-faiths you will see that none of the definitions are very clear. I've always gone with the atheists have decided there is no god(s); agnostics are keeping an open mind, and believers have faith that their deity of choice is real. On that basis the default should probably be agnosticism. However if you look into it there are many definitions of all the permutations, and find ing the one that best fits (and remembering it) is tricky. For myself I decided that I was probably closest to an apatheist, in that, with the exception of this sort of debate (personally my favourite on MN) I feel that the existence or not of god(s) is utterly irrelevant. I could also describe myself as a "weak atheist" as I don't positively believe that the concept of god(s) is impossible but as I think that sounds dreadful, I don't! The original definition of agnosticism works well for me too - those who believe that the question of whether a higher power exists is unsolved and insoluble.

I think that UQD is really a freethinker, because of his wish for rationalist decision making, and use of the scientific method. Personally I don't feel the need for evidence in order to have belief, but faith. Which I don't have.

Here is a nice set of definitions, but there are some much more complex ones. www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/intro.html

If there was an atheist Life of Brian equivalent, I'm sure I would laugh at that too. I didn't want to imply that religious people would have no sense of humour btw, and if I did I apologise.

Lucia, is it really considered to be the case then, that the released prisoner was added to make the Jewish crowd look bad? Was this one of the possible later additions you are talking about? Are there other areas to which things have possibly been added to discredit Judaism? Does this happen again when Islam develops(don't know if that's the right way to put it)from Christianity? I mean, does Islam attempt to discredit it's predecessors(again, I apologise if that offends anyone, I don't have a clue what I'm talking about) Sorry to display my horrible ignorance.

I knew that Judaism, Christianity and Islam were grouped together as it were, but was really interested to read your comment that Christianity was the child of Judaism, and Islam the grandchild. I had never considered their relationship, and was not really aware of their roots within one another.

Rhubarb, that's very interesting. I am struggling to follow all the quotes here, but I'm doing my best. I am interested to know what both you and Lucia consider to be Jesus' family? I have read in Lucia's posts about James as a brother, is this the same person considered by Roman Catholics to be his cousin, or I think someone said it could be interpreted as brethren? Also I think Lucia mentioned sisters? Are there further mentions of these, and are these open to interpretation too?

Sorry to pick your brains so much, if you've had enough, feel free to ignore me!
I've often thought there would be much more support for different religions(whether people chose to follow it or not)if they taught it in school as 'early history' instead of RE. Children would grow up with a better understanding of it's meanings and customs, and perhaps grow into more tolerant adults as a result. I realise they do study it now, but RE has a stigma attached ime, and the assumption is you are only interested if you are religious. I'm probably over simplifying again though!

I understand though growing up, or think I do at least. It must be difficult to discuss something close to your heart with people who just don't get it. I hope you don't go away with a poor view of atheists, I think in general(for the later part of the thread anyway)it has been a discussion which has mostly been good, but has slipped sometimes into defensiveness on all sides, which I guess is human nature. People have different styles of talking, and I don't think most have meant to undermine, belittle or offend.

This conversation has been going on so long, i don't remember if you have already said, but what religion do you follow(?)belong to(?), and how strictly do you adhere to it's observances, if you don't mind my asking?(no problem if you don't want to answer). What about others here? W

Not sure what happened there! Where you brought up in them, or have you come to them later in life?

I was vaguely raised church of england, and my parents still attend. After a long period of various hippy beliefs, I realised I had always taken all of it with a pinch of salt, and ought to own up to my real feelings on it, although as I said before I still find religions(and cultures)very interesting. I think I may be adding some exoticism which isn't there when on the inside, though

Nooka, that's a great link! 'Words are slippery things', indeed