So, Paul, since you've had a deconversion experience... maybe you should change your name to Saul.
@Paulogia6 жыл бұрын
Saulogia
@robsaxepga4 жыл бұрын
Lol funny
@MLennholm3 жыл бұрын
Better Call Paul _Saul_
@phrozenwun3 жыл бұрын
@@Paulogia asaulogetics: Advocacy of the mundane as a means to extract historicity from legend. An Occams razor for legend, if you will. (comment mostly for the algo)
@letsomethingshine3 жыл бұрын
@@phrozenwun Paul is just the "English from the Greco-Roman" way to say Saul (English from the Hebrew). And James is just the "English from the Greco-Roman" way to say Jacob (English from the Hebrew way to say Hacob). Jesus is just the "English from the Greco-Roman" way to say Joshua (English form the Hebrew way to say Hosea).
@thejesuschrist6 жыл бұрын
I love a good origin story!
@Paulogia6 жыл бұрын
I had a "secret origins" thumbnail planned, but it was a little too comic insider for mass appeal.
@danielf.71516 жыл бұрын
Too bad the abrahmaic faiths have one of the most boring origin stories for the universe and earth.
@steelman15066 жыл бұрын
@Jesus Christ Jesus why don't you just stop being mysterious and tell us how it really happened. I have good money on Mary being a tramp
@powpuck50316 жыл бұрын
Bitten by a radioactive basilisk lizard.
@_a.z6 жыл бұрын
Jeez! The reality of our origins is so much more incredible! Hope you're doing OK!
@WynnterGreen4 жыл бұрын
I kept thinking I saw my best friend, who died, for months after he was gone. It was just regular people in the street who looked or moved like him. In my grief I wanted to be wrong about his death so desperately that I started to think I was seeing him.
@donnyh34974 жыл бұрын
A had an incredibly realistic dream that my parents came to see me not long after they died. If I was gullible and superstitious I would have believed it was real
@trentitybrehm510510 ай бұрын
Multiple people, dozens of them, do NOT all share the same hallucination when grieving the loss of a loved one.
@magic00squirrel7 ай бұрын
@@trentitybrehm5105 not to mention that thinking that you've seen someone who's dead is not the same as sitting down with them, talking, and eating with them in a group of many people. The biggest problem I see with this video's explanation is that it is not consistent with itself. On the one hand, he says that Peter experienced a post-traumatic hallucination, and on the other, he says that the gospels were made up by people with no input from the eye-witnesses. Which is it? Did Peter claim to see the resurrected Jesus or not?
@trentitybrehm51057 ай бұрын
@@magic00squirrel Exaactly. The only thing that makes sense of all the evidence is the ressurection
@PurpleRhymesWithOrange6 жыл бұрын
In the months after my fiance died there were several times I heard her voice. I would not consider that reason to believe she still haunts the house she died in. More likely these were just echoes of memories of someone I assumed would be with me the rest of my life.
@Chaosism6 жыл бұрын
The mind can be brutal. In the presence of a few people who had immediately passed, while quietly observing the body, I and others perceived the natural breathing motion from their chest independently from one another; it was an illusion that our minds created in trying to made predictions. I'm very sorry to hear of your terrible tragedy. :(
@PurpleRhymesWithOrange6 жыл бұрын
@@Chaosism Thank you. I can easily see in a funeral home where they avoid direct lighting random shadows moving across the body could easily give the illusion the person was breathing, especially to people morning and hoping for some sign that there was a mistake.
@PurpleRhymesWithOrange6 жыл бұрын
@Humble Guy Thanks, it's been five years but at time random things can still trigger emotional responses.
@55Quirll6 жыл бұрын
No words can express the sorrow that you feel, but you have my sympathy and condolences, even after all this time.
@Hive_Atlas6 жыл бұрын
@Nathan El I feel like if God appeared before me, I would wonder if I was dreaming, or if I was schizophrenic and was hallucinating. I feel like it would take multiple events for a reality like god to sink in, if that was the case. But it doesn't mean that our brains are shut off, it's just that if we saw what looked to be god, then it would be more likely that the appearance of god was a dream or hallucination. Anyways, I'm really sorry Purple. I can't imagine what it would be like to lose someone so close to you.
@comicalmommy2716 жыл бұрын
This explanation is exactly the one I use when discussing these things with my christian relatives. They dont like it, and we ultimately go to "WHY CANT YOU JUST LET ME BELIEVE???" dude. We are literally having this conversation because you feel the need to "bring me back into the fold". Respect my non-belief, and I will stop undermining your faith.
@Paulogia6 жыл бұрын
I like your tactic! Maybe you can just send them this link in the future?
@comicalmommy2716 жыл бұрын
@@Paulogia yes. Absolutely.
@Shenaldrac2 жыл бұрын
How awful of you to oppress your family's religion by not also believing it! :V
@SG-ni8tk Жыл бұрын
Who’s here in 2023 sending this link to their friends who somehow dove off the deep end and became die hard MAGA Christians?
@trentitybrehm510510 ай бұрын
When you let go of your pride and stop mocking and look at the actual evidence for Jesus and the reliability of the Bible, the only reasonable conclusion is that it's true.
@timberry47096 жыл бұрын
"Is there some aspect of the existence of Christianity that you think my scenario fails to address?" Bunnies delivering multicolored (and sometimes chocolate) eggs on Easter.
@Paulogia6 жыл бұрын
Gotta give the kids something to do while the parents celebrate fertility.
@weescotspaul6 жыл бұрын
The concept of the Easter Bunny and coloured eggs predates Christianity by centuries. Devout Christians *hate* the concept of the Easter Bunny, because it's got bugger all to do with what they want the time to be about. It's a part of a pagan festival of fertility named after the goddess Eastre. It was a celebration of the upcoming springtime and the planting of crops, thus (hopefully) signalling plenty of food for all in the coming months. Eastre was the pagan goddess of fertility, and it's from her we get the term "estrogen", the female hormone. The legend said that, in order to amuse the children, she turned a hen into a rabbit which then laid coloured eggs (or a rabbit into a hen, I forget which way around, but I think it was hen to rabbit). The references to fertility are everywhere with original Eastre traditions: The fertile soil in the springtime; eggs; rabbits (we know why _they're_ linked to fertility!) and even down to the name itself. It had absolutely *zero* to do with some guy rising from the dead... that was just shoehorned in by later Christians in the same way they hijacked the Yule festival at the winter solstice (which had also existed for centuries before them) and renamed it "Christmas".
@weescotspaul6 жыл бұрын
@Michael Tilley Indeed. Yule was a convenient time for "Christmas" and Eastre was for some reason convenient for them to place their "Easter" resurrection story. The Easter one perplexes me, because it's always on a different date and I can't fathom why the Christians would want the supposed date of their leader's rise from the dead to be different every year. It would have made more sense to steal the Beltane festival, which is always on 1st May. So they hijacked a moving festival for an event that shouldn't be flexible while leaving a fixed festival alone. Makes no sense. I suppose with Eastre being all about fertility, they thought it would fit well with a rebirth but it would still make more sense to have it fixed. They couldn't even leave Samhain alone. It was always about commemorating the end of summer and the coming of darkness, hence the macabre nature of it. They hijacked the day after in order to worship dead saints and called it "All Saints Day" ("All Hallow's Day"), so Samhain became "All Hallow's Eve" (or "Hallowe'en"). All the celebration involving evil spirits probably put the shits up them so they had to do _something_ about it. Assholes.
@gabemerritt31396 жыл бұрын
@@weescotspaul The Jewish passover moves every year too, and Easter is always the week after that no?
@weescotspaul6 жыл бұрын
@@gabemerritt3139 Easter tends to occur during Passover, but not exclusively. Sometimes it's at the beginning, sometimes it's towards the end, occasionally it's weeks apart. Passover takes place on a fixed date in the Hebrew calendar, during the month of Nisan. The calendar is lunisolar so Passover _usually_ begins at the first full moon after the vernal equinox (which is 20th March in the Gregorian calendar in the northern hemisphere). I say usually, because it _can_ sometimes start at the second full moon. Easter is also scheduled according to a lunisolar calendar, and occurs on the first Sunday _after_ the first full moon after March 21st, so will (more often than not) be on the Sunday that takes place during Passover week, but not always. 2016 is an example of this, when Passover started some 3 and a half weeks after Easter. Why the Christians kept Easter scheduled according to a lunisolar calendar and didn't fix it in the Julian or, later, Gregorian calendar is a mystery to me.
@fred_derf6 жыл бұрын
Much too logical and reasonable, an all-powerful supernatural being pretending to be a human so he can be sacrificed to himself to abolish the sin of others is much more fitting..
@rolfinator16 жыл бұрын
Didn't he punish humanity for eating a fruit of knowledge. And is angry with humanity for not knowing any better?
@fred_derf6 жыл бұрын
@@rolfinator1 That's the one. Talk about setup to fail. Adam and -Steve- Eve were specifically designed *without* the ability to know right from wrong, then when they unwittingly did something that god arbitrarily decided was wrong he punished not only them, but all of their descendants -- forever! God is all-loving so eternally punishing someone and all of their descendants for things that were beyond their control is an act of love, who knew?
@rolfinator16 жыл бұрын
@@fred_derf nobody would put his children into a cage and add a poisonous snake to it. Plus expect for something good to come out of it. Let alone call himself a good parent.
@p.bamygdala21396 жыл бұрын
I recommend learning about the Sethian gnostics. What a trip! They believed that Yahweh of the OT was actually Yaldabaoth, the demiurge, a subordinate god who created the physical reality but was kind of like the devil. It explains all the bad stuff he did. So 'Jesus' was sent by the good and superior god to rectify the situation, first as the snake, and later as a man. Trippy!
@lgloryboyl49254 жыл бұрын
@@fred_derf lol God is all loving he is also just it’s just that we all deserve hell and it’s also loving because our actions show what we want also they disobeyed God that’s not right or wrong that’s you not listening to your creator
@ThatTheologyTeacher6 жыл бұрын
It’s a common misconception to believe that Saul changed his name to Paul following his conversion experience. Saul was actually his Hebrew name and Paul was his Roman or Latin name. I forgot where it’s located (maybe in Acts), but he’s still called Saul for some time after his conversion. Obviously to “market” the religion to gentiles, it would have been more effective for him to use his non-Jewish name when evangelizing, hence the later use of the name Paul.
@reeceguisse176 жыл бұрын
I still can't shake the impression that Paul was the name he took when he went under-cover in the Cult of the Way to turn it away from the Jews by changing it into a Gentile religion. Lets face it: until Paul, you have to become a Jew to join, including circumcision, dietary laws, everything.
@ThatTheologyTeacher6 жыл бұрын
Truth Seeker But didn’t religion write, preserve, edit, and canonize the Bible? For instance, what is known today as Christianity existed before the New Testament. The Christian Church, which indeed was formed in 50 AD wrote the gospels beginning in 70. In the second century they decided to throw out the ones they disagree with (or simply weren’t popular), resulting in the four canonical gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. Although I agree that today’s Christianity has deeply strayed from the first century (pre-50 AD) movement of “The Way”... you have to acknowledge the role it played in the Bible’s composition and preservation.
@CallMeChato6 жыл бұрын
But everyone knew him as Nancy.
@BigHeretic6 жыл бұрын
@Truth Seeker The question that *Paulogia* asked is whether his scenario could account for the Religion that we see today; what facts don't fit? what is inconsistent? Could it have happened like that and if not, why not?
@BigHeretic6 жыл бұрын
@Truth Seeker No, not reading all that because it's more of the same and off topic. You can't refute that the scenario above is perfectly plausible and so you go off on a tangent, I'm not interested in your ramblings. .
@thatoneguyinthecomments26336 жыл бұрын
When one of my mothers close friends died she basically stopped sleeping and just shutdown for about a week or two after the funeral and at one point had vivid hallucinations and full conversations with the deceased friend. This shit happens, the human mind alone can warp your perceptions when under intense stress.
@jester_19736 жыл бұрын
I had a vivid vision of passed relatives when my first son was brought home for the first time. They were as real to me as anyone I'd ever seen. I was over-emotional, stressed (it had been a difficult birth), and exhausted. I've never claimed these people actually came to visit us, but it's easy to see why some people make such claims.
@tkat64426 жыл бұрын
A friend of mine and his wife had a baby that was severely deformed and handicapped and, as expected, died within weeks. He remains convinced that the "spirit" of that baby is now his guardian angel watching over him.
@p.bamygdala21396 жыл бұрын
This is a fantastic thread! Thanks everyone for sharing your personal stories and insights!
@tkat64426 жыл бұрын
@Skeptic Psychologist what a great reply! It's so important not only to get help, but to get the right help.
@tomrhodes16296 жыл бұрын
Yes, it's ALL in the mind. But do you know why? MIND is all there is! But those who do not know that, those who have FORGOTTEN that fact, must experience a world of LIMITATION as you and I are currently doing. Want to know more? "Seek and ye shall find."
@VCXZ8836 жыл бұрын
SJ Thomason: "No Paul, don't you see? It has to be magic! It just has to be!"
@Paulogia6 жыл бұрын
I can hear it now.
@Paulogia6 жыл бұрын
tag her and others on this? twitter.com/paulogia0/status/1089940095975608320
@עמיחיאלימלך-כ8ל4 жыл бұрын
@@Paulogia On Saturday night, Pontius Pilate ordered to remove the body of Jesus from the tomb and bury it elsewhere, during the week a number of people(the women?) discovered that Jesus' tomb was empty,and because they did not know what happened on Saturday night. Why did Pontius not prove to them that it was their mistake? It would not have helped, the body had already rotted, and because of the blows Jesus had received, people would not believe that it was Jesus. Secondly, who said Pilate didn't do it and people just didn't believe him? Since believers did not even try to do anything against the Romans, Pilate simply gave them up and let them believe in the nonsense(for him) of Jesus' resurrection. It makes much more sense to me in the first place than the story of Jesus' resurrection and secondly to the fact that Pilate heard of the empty tomb and did not send soldiers to search for who stole the body, probably in light of Matthew's preposterous story of the Roman soldiers guarding the tomb. Regarding the creed(1 Cor 15), the study today tends to see the subject of 500+ people who saw Jesus after the resurrection or as a later addition of later Christian scribe,or Paul's addition that wasn't part of the original creed.
@agimasoschandir4 жыл бұрын
@ Amichai Elimelech - I am using a translation since your original Hebrew causes writing to be from right to left. Your speculating on what isn't said in the Bible. The body rotted after one night? As for the blows, he was supposedly recognized by those that had known him when he appeared before them afterwards. Are you trying to make a guess that P. Pilate hid the body? I have heard that proposition, and that Pilate did so so Jesus would not become a martyr with people worshiping around his tomb. Sorta like A. Lincoln was buried elsewhere so his body would not be desecrated by Southern sympathizers. Anyway, the narrative adds to much complication and speculation. It could just as well have been the he was supposed to be buried in the tomb provided by Joseph of Arimathea but the soldiers did not care and went ahead and buried Jesus like any other crucified body
@Limited_Light3 жыл бұрын
@@Paulogia I would, but I got blocked from Twitter a little over a year ago after seeing if I could tweet as often as DJT in a day. It took much worse than spammer FOR DJT to get banned, though.
@beccahawkins19054 жыл бұрын
Good video. One correction: It’s a commonly repeated misunderstanding of the text to suggest that “Saul changed his name to Paul” after his vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus. As a first-century Jew who was also a Roman citizen, Paul would have had both names from childhood (cf. the Bauer-Danker-Arndt-Gingrich Greek-English Lexicon under the entry for Παῦλος). The author of Luke-Acts first introduces him to us as Σαῦλος/Σαούλ (Saulos/Saoul), which are Greek spellings of the Hebrew/Aramaic name שָׁאוּל (Sha’ul, “Saul”). But the author of Luke-Acts doesn’t start calling him Παῦλος (Paulos, “Paul”) in his narrative until four chapters after the account of his baptism in Acts 9 (see Acts 13). The occasion for the literary switch is not Paul’s newfound faith in Jesus but rather an episode where Saul and Barnabas are trying to prevent a “false prophet” from turning a Roman proconsul with the name Σέργιος Παῦλος (Sergios Paulos, “Sergius Paulus”) from the faith. Luke takes this opportunity to say that “Saul” was “also” called Παῦλος (Paulos)...that is, that he shared a name with the proconsul, and he refers to him as such throughout the rest of the text. But “Paul” is simply the name by which the Gentile world knew him. It was the name he went by when interacting with the mostly Gentile congregations to whom he was writing letters. So it’s a misconstrual of the text to say that “Saul” was his Jewish name and “Paul” was his Christian name. “Paul” wasn’t a “Christian name” at his time...there was no such thing then. It was his Greco-Roman name. He had both names from childhood, and we have no reason to believe that he ever abandoned his Jewish name while retaining his Greco-Roman one.
@Paulogia4 жыл бұрын
Thank you for this!
@tonyhogg98393 жыл бұрын
What tipped the scales for me was I was thinking how Christian authors today just base ideas in their books off other things they have read, from conversations they have had with other believers, and maybe some from just them turning ideas over in their own heads. Then those books those authors had read were written by other Christian authors who did the same, who read books from even earlier authors, and so on back decade after decade back into time. I suddenly realized a religion can sprout up from something not true and just keep getting bigger and more complex as time goes on. My belief fell apart at that moment and I had a bit of a panic attack that one Saturday morning making breakfast. From then on I realized a load of people trying to tell you it's real is useless. It can only be real if it is real, not because of hundreds of thousands of people believing it and just coming up with reasons as to why it's true. That's all Christians do. Just come up with after-the-fact reasons of its validity. Now I would require something way more substantial. Like maybe an angel appearing in front of everyone at a church service. That would be a good start, but that never happens. Yet another reason to have doubts. No manifestations of something supernatural. Just a building, a piano, and a bunch of people praising about things unseen.
@michaeldeltz8229 Жыл бұрын
Why don't you read the original sources? That's what I did, and now I'm an even more convinced Christian (and Catholic) than I was before going to grad school to get my Master of Theology degree. I wouldn't rule out Christianity simply on the possibility that it might not be true. Quoting former atheist C.S. Lewis, "Christianity, if false, if of no importance. If true, Christianity is of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important." If you need something substantial, you could look into the miraculous tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the apparition and miracle at Fatima, the countless Eucharistic miracles (several of which have been thoroughly examined by scientists, the countless medical miracles documented and investigated before the canonization of saints, and on and on). I've had my own supernatural experience that I can't explain, but I wouldn't suggest you become Christian just on my word. There's so much more evidence out there.
@LeoVital Жыл бұрын
@@michaeldeltz8229That's a moot point. All religions if true are of infinite importance. Christianity is the one you picked as right mainly because of where you were born.
@michaeldeltz8229 Жыл бұрын
@@LeoVitalactually, that’s not true. I left Christianity in college and became an agnostic. When I was in my late 30’s I took up the issue again for many reasons. I was determined to seek truth wherever it may be found, even if it led me to atheism. Atheism and polytheism were rather easy to discard. After examining the evidence, I came back to Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. Having gone through graduate theology school, I did have to unlearn many of the things I thought I knew about God, Jesus, etc and that has given me a very solid foundation for my faith. I still entertain questions as I’m not afraid of the truth. I have found that Jesus has been the answer to every question so far and will continue to be the answer forever. If Jesus was a historical person, claimed to be God, and rose from the grave with witnesses, that should give one pause to make the statement that any religion is just as good as the other. There may be some truth found in all religions, but only one religion contains Jesus who is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”
@Mik-ha-El4 ай бұрын
@@michaeldeltz8229 If you’ve studied early Christianity as much as you say, you’re probably familiar with the Nazarenes and the Ebionites, and just the general labeling of Jewish believers by the church fathers to have held a “mere man” christology. Perhaps you are also aware that Justin Martyr, the earliest of the Logos Theorists tells us about other Christians in communion with him who don’t believe Jesus pre existed, but that he had one nature as a human being who became the first resurrected from the dead. Interestingly, the earliest apostolic preaching in the book of acts, seems in perfect harmony to this early Jewish Christology. Further, Justin himself is quite Arian in his thinking, believing Jesus to be a distinct being from the Hebrew God. And Justin isn’t unique here. Virtually all the anti Nicene Fathers held the same subordinationist views. Given the data we have, it seems like the main reason to believe in the Doctrine of the Trinity, stems from the later imperial period traditions, and not from apostolic teaching. I’ve never heard a Trinitarian preach the apostolic gospel proclaimed in the book of Acts. And since all trinitarian proof texts can be interpreted in a way that harmonizes the the clearer apostolic preaching, why would anyone be motivated to believe in the later interpretations other than to seek the acceptance of the Christian majority?
@michaeldeltz82294 ай бұрын
@@Mik-ha-Elto answer the last question, I take Jesus at his word when he promised to send the Holy Spirit which would guide the Church into all truth (Jn 16:13).
@fudgesauce4 жыл бұрын
Having been raised Catholic (it didn't work on me), I find it hilarious whenever you mention James, the brother of Jesus (as you do in this video). As you probably know, there is an extensive, extra-biblical theology built around Mary. The cult of Mary is so intense that not only was Jesus a virgin birth, Mary was also the result of a virgin birth, and remained a virgin throughout her life. The hoops Catholics jump through to explain this away this plain wording about Jesus having a brother makes them look foolish to other Christians, I imagine.
@reubenmanzo20542 жыл бұрын
According to the book by the same name, Jesus' brother was Jude.
@davidson461002 жыл бұрын
@@reubenmanzo2054 You talk like it is impossible for Mary to have had a long and prolific childbearing life. Jesus could have had several brothers and sisters. Just because the Bible doesn't specifically state something happening does not mean it didn't happen. The Bible is not a historically accurate document. That is why Christians are called to exercise so much faith. Faith is belief in the unprovable and the unlikely.
@reubenmanzo20542 жыл бұрын
@@davidson46100 Where did you get that impression? I said nothing of the sort. I said the Bible itself testifies that Jesus had (at least) one brother.
@DirkDjently Жыл бұрын
as far as I'm aware it is not Catholic dogma that Mary was conceived by a virgin. Are you maybe referring to the immaculate conception? the dogma that Mary was conceived without being affected by original sin (but not by miraculous virgin conception)
@lbrown8167 Жыл бұрын
@@DirkDjentlyI think OP is referring to a sect within Catholicism that believes these things about Mary. Not that it’s official Catholic doctrine.
@CaseAgainstFaith16 жыл бұрын
Whenever skeptics suggest alternative hypotheses, Christians always demand proof that the alternative is true. Forgetting they have no proof or their own. But I don’t usually spend too much time considering alternatives because indeed there is no proof of any alternatives. But nearly any hypothesis is better than the Christian hypothesis.
@olive9966 жыл бұрын
When asked how they know the Bible is truly the word of God, most Christians will point to the Bible itself as evidence. That's why this lack of proof doesn't bother really bother them. They are stuck on an endless loop of 'evidence that verifies itself.'
@frankcoronado98585 жыл бұрын
But, they do have proof. Their called the Gospels. Nonbelievers just dismiss it because it goes against their personal views.
@CaseAgainstFaith15 жыл бұрын
Frank Coronado The Gospels arent proof of anything and we dismiss them like any other mythical writings.
@frankcoronado98585 жыл бұрын
@@CaseAgainstFaith1 You dismiss it because it goes against your preconceived notions. But, any historical account of the life of Jesus Christ would mention his miracles. The reason is that's why you would document his life in the first place. Nobody was going around writing about 1st century Judean carpenters.
@CaseAgainstFaith15 жыл бұрын
Frank Coronado First of all, you won’t win any converts pretending you can read minds. You can’t. You don’t know me, don’t pretend you do. FYI, I am 57 years old and didn’t conclude i was an atheist until I was 40. Before then, I attended church often. I wanted to believe. I just eventually concluded that I cant believe because there is no good reason to believe. You should also read other religions and mythologies. Many religions have founders of purported humble beginnings. Your savior is no different than a thousand others.
@Reason17176 жыл бұрын
I always enjoy coming to this site. The calm delivery reputing the Religious fairy tales with sound logic is refreshing. Keep up the good work.
@Paulogia6 жыл бұрын
Appreciated! Please spread the word...
@kweassa62046 жыл бұрын
Pretty much a minimalistic non-mythicism approach is what I imagine might have happened, too. Thanks for demonstrating it clearly Paulogia...!
6 жыл бұрын
You can have an actual person behind a myth and it's still a myth. The Jesus we know of today is clearly a mythical godman.
@shan16309 ай бұрын
Evidence?
@styxdragoncharon40036 жыл бұрын
I think that this is the most sensible edit to Christianity since the Jefferson Bible.
@Paulogia6 жыл бұрын
high praise? ha. thanks.
@styxdragoncharon40036 жыл бұрын
Dude, the bible is the book I read that made me an atheist. Yours is the most reasonable explanation I have heard and I love listening to apologetics. Don't sell your self short. And randomly: Aloha from Hawaii my Canadian friend :D
@markcaesar44436 жыл бұрын
This hypothesis takes care of, or at least gives a good alternative to, the Christians' favourite argument "but why are there so many consistent scriptures?". Very well constructed, Paul, thanks for this.
@TheKyrix826 жыл бұрын
The better question, why AREN'T there so many consistent scriptures?
@markcaesar44436 жыл бұрын
@@TheKyrix82 You'll never hear a Christian ask that.
@raysalmon65666 жыл бұрын
Paul needs a 101 class
@kencolorado16 жыл бұрын
@Skeptic Psychologist Well said!!!
@p.bamygdala21396 жыл бұрын
@Skeptic Psychologist thanks for a great comment!
@vegaspowerlifting6 жыл бұрын
Great job!!! Watched a few times... always find it funny, here was a guy who cured the blind, helped the sick, and spoke with such wisdom but no at that time, a third party wrote anything down. Guy comes home and his wife asks "how was your day?" The guy was so impressed with what he just witnessed he replied, "watched a little Jewish guy cure a blind guy with mud, other than that, same as usual, what's for dinner?"
@johns77346 жыл бұрын
Another possible explanation for the empty tomb is given in John. 19:39 And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight. 19:40 Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. A hundred pounds of myrrh would be an extremely tempting target for grave robbers. Remember that myrrh was so valuable that it was supposed to be brought by the Magi as a gift to Jesus' birth. Faced with a corpse wrapped with this valuable substance, they would not hang around in a tomb to recover the myrrh. They would take the myrrh, body and all, to a safe place where they could work at their leisure to make sure that they got all of it. And voila! An empty tomb!
@mikedavis9796 жыл бұрын
interesting idea
@Boatman6076 жыл бұрын
Pity the tomb was guarded by Roman soldiers.
@johns77346 жыл бұрын
@@Boatman607 John 20:1 The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. I don't see a mention of Roman soldiers. If there were any guards, wouldn't they have noticed the stone being rolled away? Only Matthew speaks of guards and describes an opening of the tomb that is consistent with guards on duty. Mark, Luke and John do not and they describe events that would be nonsensical if there were guards. Matthew describes a very different story than the others. My conjecture is only inconsistent with Matthew. It is completely consistent with Mark, Luke and John. Your objection is also only consistent with Matthew.
@kendrajade66885 жыл бұрын
John was the latest of the Gospels that took... well, it's hard to say it took the most liberties with Matthew's zombie apocalypse. There's not really much explanation there that wouldn't have been in Mark.
@themaster4086 жыл бұрын
Not to mention memory is a fragile thing. I remember telling someone of an event 15 mins after it happened. Then saw a video of that event and although the major points were there, quite a few of my details that I was certain on (color of shirt worn for example) were not only wrong, I said I KNEW it wasn't a white shirt, it was black or dark blue. Video showed it was a white shirt. Yeah, pretty easy for these stories to get out of hand.
@davidrw614 ай бұрын
My theory (for what it's worth) is that you can only remember something if you happened to notice it in the first place. A lot of what we "remember" is actually our imaginations filling in the gaps. (Because how often do you pay attention to the color of someone's shirt? Or their eye color? Or their shoes? I think, for most of us, the answer is "not often".)
@timhallas42753 жыл бұрын
When I was a child, I truly appreciated Christianity. This one religion accounted for Christmas and Easter, two opportunities to get stuff that I hadn't earned. Is there a theme here?
@SonicYouth-si8mn6 жыл бұрын
Cool vid, I like this style of short(Yes in KZbin land under the min length 10min for max ads seems short to my eyes) to the point fact checking. To think as well, Im sure there are sects who will have arguments against such a broken down and laid out perspective as yours. Great art too!
@duddude3216 жыл бұрын
I really respect your content because you only present an argument. You don't tell people that you're right, that they're wrong, or even presume what they believe, and there is no smug condescension in your tone as you make your case. You make allowances for yourself actually possibly being wrong and accept that others may, and often do, feel differently than you. I feel a lot of theists/atheists could learn from your example.
@justsomeguy28256 жыл бұрын
That's the reason I believe that Jesus was a real person. Writings about a apocalyptic preacher and faith healer named yesua getting crucified by the Romans in the first century. That's like telling a story about a college fratboy named John preforming bar tricks getting arrested for a DUI, then starting all known drinking games of the modern day.
@JMM33RanMA6 жыл бұрын
This is a calm, reasonable, logical hypothesis that certainly fits the actual historical evidence and psychology. When I was in high school I read about other religions and found them just as (un-)persuasive as the various Christian ones. Actually some of the early Christian and Gnostic "heresies" were more believable. My own hypothesis, which sent me away from the Catholic Church, was that Saul of Tarsus usurped the original Christianity and made up his own version [a.k.a. The Imperial Greco-Roman Church]. As my knowledge and understanding have increased it seems possible that he actually believed what he wrote, but, since almost half of the Epistles are forgeries and the "authentic" ones also have interpolations and elisions, we can't be sure what he actually believed. There is the same problem with the Gospels. They were written anonymously, have been meddled with extensively by different people, and are full of obvious contradictions, distortions and and implausibilities. I found Ehrman's "Forged" very enlightening, but have since moved on to Carrier's more plausible mythicism. Thanks for another well done Paulogetic ☺ keep up the good work.
@munstrumridcully6 жыл бұрын
I also find Carrier's work compelling, but what stops me from going full mythicist(as opposed to my belief that it is likely that some real person was totally mythicized and became unrecognizable in the Bible) is Hitchens point that if there was no heretical teacher of the law that Jesus of Christianity was somewhat based on, then why do the Gospels twist prophecies and birthplace etc..to fit? If it was purely myth, then why not just perfectly tailor the story to the Messiah legends? It just gives me pause that there might have been a guy, just heavily mythicized in the Gospels. Cheers :)
@JMM33RanMA6 жыл бұрын
@@munstrumridcully That is also a reasonable hypothesis. That Paul's Jesus was mythical, doesn't mean that there wasn't a real Jesus. As a matter of fact, the Bible Jesus seems very likely to have been a compilation of stories about three or more different Jesuses that were amalgamated into one mythical Jesus Christ. Considering that that is how the Gospels were obviously created, then edited and reedited, it is logical that the same process went into the creation of the Jesus character.
@munstrumridcully6 жыл бұрын
@@JMM33RanMA yeah, the amalgamation idea is also what many historians think inspired King Arthur. Makes sense.
@chefchaudard35806 жыл бұрын
What makes me think that there was "some" Jesus is also the fact that he died from crucifixion... That was something that did not help to convert the Jews (think of a Messiah that supposedly come to free people from the Romans... that dies miserably from their hands), nor the gentiles that were fully part of the Roman society (imagine if, today, a guy who has spent 15 years in prison tried to convince people that he is "Christ"). That is why both Paul and the Gospels struggle with that. They could not deny that Jesus was crucified, there must have been records and witnesses among the diaspora. Paul simply doesn't talk about that. Gospels, written later, are more focused on gentiles. They assure that it was because of the "evil" Jews for political reasons, and not the "good" Romans. Resurrection is just the final excuse: nobody killed him, after all... A purpose built "Jesus" would not have been crucified, a shameful torture in that time.
@JMM33RanMA6 жыл бұрын
@@chefchaudard3580 A purpose built [insert dead and rising god's name here] would not have been crucified, a shameful torture in that time. This apologetic has been sufficiently debunked because persecution and death [with or without a resurrection] has failed to dissuade believers. Need I mention that the persecution and death of Joe Smith doesn't seem to have hurt the Mormon recruitment. As far as converting "the Jews," is concerned, most of them did and do not convert. Those that did became Ebionites, who were too Jewish and were later persecuted out of existence. Of course the non-Jewish Christians had their own beliefs [Adoptionism, Arianism, Docetism, etc.] that did not rely on Jesus having had a human body that really died, or that the Divine Being left the human body, etc. Analysis of the records of growth [not church fables] suggest that virtually all growth was non-Jewish, especially when the religion gained popularity and after it became the official religion, at which point people who refused to accept the beliefs [Jesus' divinity, the trinity, etc.] were persecuted.
@AustinOKeeffe6 жыл бұрын
It's a possible theory. The fact that the earliest account we have - Paul didn't mention Jesus' earthly life but only vaguely about his last supper crucifixion and resurrection, and there are no reliable historical records of Jesus' life from the first century apart from a story written by an unknown writer and copied by other unknown writers, it is reasonable to say that there is a good chance he didn't exist at all, or at least most of what was written was fiction.
@arthurmorgan1495 жыл бұрын
Good theory but Jesus ministry, crucifixion, and reported resurrection was recorded outside of the Bible as well.
@AustinOKeeffe4 жыл бұрын
@@arthurmorgan149 Jesus life and death was not recorded outside the bible in the first century, unless you are referring to the Josephus paragraph which is widely agreed to be a forgery.
@farmercraig60803 жыл бұрын
@@AustinOKeeffe Josephus writing on Jesus isn’t a forgery. There are no writings of Josephus without that passage, and it’s quoted as such by ancient writers.
@theflipper4043 жыл бұрын
@@AustinOKeeffe I am atheist myself but historical Jesus definitely existed lol. Just because he existed doesn’t mean he was divine. The people that I don’t think existed were Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Noah. Muhammad also existed, but again, that doesn’t mean he was divine in any way.
@davidlamb11072 жыл бұрын
@@farmercraig6080 regardless, Josephus was not in a position to attest to the veracity. The best that we can do with his testimony is say that some group of people in his day believed Jesus to be a real person. Josephus is not actually affirming any stories about Jesus in any way.
@RickySTT6 жыл бұрын
Small detail that doesn’t affect your argument: there is no evidence that Nazareth existed during Jesus’ lifetime, and circumstantial evidence that it _could not_ have existed at that time.
@davefoc6 жыл бұрын
The non existence of Nazareth is not clear. Here is a Guardian article that describes an archeological project that claims to have discovered evidence of habitation is an area that is considered to be where Nazareth might have been: www.theguardian.com/world/2009/dec/21/nazareth-dwelling-discovery-jesus However the whole thing is not without issues. One big one is that a similar word, Nazarene (in English), was use to describe people of an early Jewish sect, so maybe an early Jesus writer just conflated two concepts, Nazarene and Nazareth? What is definitely true is that Nazareth is not known to have existed as a place name in first century Palestine.
@Iamtheskidoostig6 жыл бұрын
I was raised catholic until I moved out at 18. Wasted some time identifying myself as agnostic. But did my research and came to the resolution that all creation stories that involve “gods” are bunk and the belief in them is akin to flat-earth theory. I love your material, thank you for your hard work and I hope to see more.
@personalaccount75342 жыл бұрын
Osho said Paul’s conversion was psychological 40 years ago. People who hate something are often unconsciously attracted to it and do their best to suppress until they snap. No supernatural explanation needed.
@davefoc6 жыл бұрын
I spent a bit of time over the years trying to learn about the earliest history of Christianity. Mostly, the time was wasted. The fact that most authors and researchers don't talk about much is that there is almost no solid evidence for any aspect of early Christianity. Paulogia gave the gospels more credibility than they deserve IMO. Not that he gave them much credibility, I just think they deserve less. So that pretty much leaves the Paul's epistles generally judged to be genuine which is about half of them in the NT (Scholars don't completely agree about how many and which ones of Paul's epistles are genuine) . But even the epistles judged to be genuine are problematic as a source of history. There is no corroborating evidence (Paul seems to be the first one to write about Jesus and even for him Jesus has been long dead by the time he is writing about Jesus). The epistles don't elaborate on what groups Paul is communicating with or what group Paul belongs to. I find Paul's descriptions of his interactions with the family of Jesus to be particularly problematic. Here he is talking to the alleged brother of Jesus and nothing about the life or death of Jesus comes up? I don't think it can be determined what role Paul played in the rise of early Christianity. Was he an originator of just an early proselytizer? My own thought about early Christianity is that it arose in a group that were believers that a Messiah that was on the way and that was causing a problem for the faithful and the somebody came up with the idea that the messiah had already come (was that Paul?) and it was this Jesus fellow and that notion caught on.Today nothing is known about this Jesus fellow including whether he existed but scholars have spent lifetimes poring over bits of stuff that looks like it might have some evidential value about the nature of Jesus only to come up with vastly different stories because the underlying evidence is ambiguous and squishy. Sometimes the truth is unknowable and I think this is one of those times.
@p.bamygdala21396 жыл бұрын
Paulogia: Fantastic job summing up minimal historicity! I love this type of video! Could you please do the same for the mythesist position? My favourite scholarly sources are of course Carrier, Price, and Fitzgerald. Some great KZbin channels include Fishers of Evidence and NotoriUK, plus Murdock. It boils down to this: - Around 200-300 BCE, the Hebrew Torah got translated into Greek. A vastly wider audience became exposed to these stories and started incorporating Jewish lore into their writings. - 150 BCE - 70 CE: tons of Judean prophets spoke out against Roman occupation of Judaea including several who were named Jesus or later given the title. Some even had 5 or 12 disciples, performed miracles, and were crucified. Jesus could have been a composite character of these (if these stories were even referenced!). - Throughout this time, Judaen people were desperately awaiting a saviour (a 'Jesus') who would save them from the Romans. - 70 CE: The Temple is destroyed and the Jews are decimated. Their culture is in ruins, they are humiliated and scattered, they feel that their God has forsaken them (huge cognitive dissonance), and they have lost the temple which was their only means of communicating with their god, and for atonement from sin (the temple was where god literally lived) -- huge ontological insecurity -- they were in dire straights! - The Torah says that if the messiah came but the Jews ignored him, then 70 years after his birth, Judaea would be destroyed... - and... wouldn't ya know it, after the devastating temple fall (70 CE), stories start to emerge that a saviour had been born but was disregarded, 70 years prior! Prophecy fulfilled! (In reverse) - Mark is believed to be the first gospel, and was written after 70 CE (it described the temple fall). It was written in high Greek, by highly educated people, as a very stripped down fable, and narratively structured as allegorical parabels, which would only have been read by priests, interpreting it as they saw fit. The name of Mark was assigned centuries later. - Mark's Jesus character died for the sins of all the Hebrew people, so they were off the hook now for temple sacrifice, because this one counted for all time. Phew! Cognitive dissonance and ontological insecurity resolved. Happy people! - Matthew and Luke were copies of Mark, likely from other churches making changes to fit desired practices and appeal to specific audiences (Jewish and Roman/Gentile, respectively). The four gospel books were never intended to be brought together, which is why their many contradictions and obvious copying are apparent now. - Jesus' story perfectly follows many other popular dying and rising saviour gods of the time, mashed together with Old Testament stories copied word for word; Daniel, Isaiah, Moses, etc. And all written as parables. The whole thing could have been written based on other stories, with no research into any real past persons. - Paul only spoke of a heavenly Jesus, based on revelation. Paul was basically a Sethian Gnostic. People were worshipping a heavenly Jesus (non-corporeal) in 1st C CE. -There's no proof of when paul was written. The only date stamp in Paul's authentic letters (2 Corinthians) is a reference to Aretas, the King of Damascus, who ruled in 100 BCE. Huge continuity error! - Early Christians were adoptionists (hence "anointed one" or "Christ", born a man but chosen and possessed at baptism), docitists (J was just a ghost), Sethians (Yahweh was sort of the Devil), and gnostics. There are still traces of each of these views in the gospels. - Paul's story perfectly matches Apollonius ("Pol") of Tyana and Orpheus of Thrace. Paul could be a composite character. - Nazareth didn't exist. "Nazorean" was a mistranslation: it's also a branch of Essene Judaism with extremely pious missionary workers who had long hair and went around anointing people. - there are no author names, no references, no original copies, no sources, no corroborations with anything in secular history (the few mentions, a century later, are of 'Christians', and the rest are proven interpolations), no eye witness accounts, and the stories have tons of private conversations which a historical author would have no way of knowing! The earliest extant copy of the NT is from the 4th Century! Everything prior is just scraps from 3rd C. - The scholarly community widely accepts that Acts was fiction, unsupported by any secular history. The entire Jesus story didn't need an actual Jesus. It's made from OT stories, random characters from Flavious, plus Persian and Greek mythology. And it came along at the perfect time to fill a desperate market need... handy! - someone likely Euhemerized the heaven-bound Hebew character of Jesus (fan fiction where a deity is written as having been human), which was also the style at the time. Even though we can't be sure which is true, I'm leaning to the mythesist position as being most likely. But we should all be a-yeshuan (unconvinced of the existence of a historical Yeshua ben Yosepha). Thanks!
@bslk12523 жыл бұрын
P. B Amygdala , 👍👍
@michaeldeltz8229 Жыл бұрын
I'm in the scholarly community, and we most definitely see Acts as historical. I will be completing my Master of Theology this year. The rest of your argument is rather creative but holds no weight. Cite your sources.
@PurpleRhymesWithOrange6 жыл бұрын
Even when I was a Christian I never took the story of Jesus to be historical. What you presented here is the closest I've seen anyone else depict it. I had always assumed it was in a similar vein to the legends of King Arthur and Robin Hood. I thought probably there had been a number of teachers roaming about and preaching similar messages. Over the years a number of scribes wrote down their sermons and bits of their stories. At some point one scribe thought it made a better story to say all these things (and a few more) had been done by a single man. Thus a legend was born.
@curiousnerdkitteh Жыл бұрын
Maybe Paul's hallucination wasn't due to PTSD directly, and the trigger itself was fatigue and dehydration on the road. People can hallucinate from fatigue, which is probably a cause of experiencing "visions" after hours of prayer and days of fasting (which is generally when prophets supposedly had their visions and in modern times often seems to be when people have these supposed visions - I remember being told to "persevere" UNTIL God showed up and fight against "the flesh"'s desire to rest.) Similarly it'd explain visions during a long worship session amidst dizzying overstimulation and reduced oxygen among a crowd of people. I myself learned to attribute "the holy spirit" to a sense of dissociation from the overwhelm in a crowd. Also the power of suggestion whenever the preacher SAID it was happening made me feel more receptive and primed to expect it, almost a heightened awareness rather like when you're trying to fall asleep at night, think a shadow outside looks like an intruder, and suddenly now every small sound and shadow has new meaning and your brain is looking for danger and interpreting normal house creaking sounds as footsteps. So a long journey in the blazing sun while trying to keep concentration while riding a horse could have been what actually triggered Paul's "vision", with the actual content of his vision being his subconscious guilt/PTSD which his brain was finally processing in his vulnerable state. Similarly to a call video of yours and Matt's that I saw recently where the caller describes having read up on the Egyptian gods and been fascinated with them, and then when he had a near death experience had an apparent supernatural vision which just happened to be of Anubis.
@thembill82466 жыл бұрын
This has gone straight to the top of my "Answer to 'THOSE' kind of questions" list. Thank you for this elegant, eloquent explanation, Paul!
@DarthCalculus6 жыл бұрын
One thing you didn't address was the context of Judaism. Apologists will hammer the point that jesus's crucifixion placed him under the curse of God according to Deuteronomy (he was hanged on a tree). Also, the elevation of Jesus to co-equal deity with a father would be heretical to the Unitarian Jews. Your explanation makes more sense to the Greco-Roman world than for Jerusalem.
@CommieApe6 жыл бұрын
Anyone who bases their belief in a deity they cannot prove exists and assumes a man was dead for 3 days before returning to life need to critically evaluate their world view.
@ratamacue03206 жыл бұрын
2 days.
@CommieApe6 жыл бұрын
@@ratamacue0320 hahahaaaaaaaaa does that change anything? In the ancient middle east? If youre dead for 8 minutes your fucked even with modern science. 2 or 3 days means nothing Jesus would be stone cold and stinky.
@ldpauls6 жыл бұрын
@@ratamacue0320 Actually a lot of Christians think it was 3 days, even though Friday evening to Sunday morning is only about 36 hours.
@ratamacue03206 жыл бұрын
@@CommieApe it just reflects the silliness of the whole thing that most Christians can't even -count- tell their own story correctly.
@Littlekitten_5 күн бұрын
Yet you can’t explain how the earth was created you go based on a theory . You can’t prove god doesn’t exist . Only one of us is right . We’ll see in death
@Griexxt6 жыл бұрын
With Jesus specifically, pretty much any story fits the historical facts, because there are none.
@Alexa-Raine6 жыл бұрын
There are many historical references, most of which are contradictory.
@gregcampwriter6 жыл бұрын
@@Alexa-Raine The references are to Christians and some vague notions about what they believe.
@BAZZAROU8126 жыл бұрын
You can apply any situation in life and somehow its in the Bible.. Pretty convenient huh..
@Alexa-Raine6 жыл бұрын
@@gregcampwriter yes.. Many of them... Like I said.. Thanks for clarifying?
@raysalmon65666 жыл бұрын
@@Alexa-Raine What are those contradictions
@MrBroza.6 жыл бұрын
You just blew my lid off. This is going to my stash of vids next to Hitchens.
@__Andrew6 жыл бұрын
Barth Erhman's book "How Jesus Became God" basically talks all about this subject. How scripture evolved the Jesus story and why it probably happened in each step. It's a interesting read for sure and helps put a lot of the chronology of the Jesus story in an easy to comprehend order.
@gregcampwriter6 жыл бұрын
I keep speculating--for amusement only, likely--that Paul, a Greek resident of Tarsus who like many others of the period had become attracted to Judaism, cooked up the whole thing as a kind of Hebraic Socrates. His letters are the oldest part of the New Testament, and the conflict between Paul and the leaders in Jerusalem could be a mumbled admission that the people of that city had no idea what he was talking about. Yeah, I know, the evidence is almost, but not quite entirely lacking. But the idea might make a good comic opera.
@mamamheus77516 жыл бұрын
As Cool Hard Logic's cartoon Cleetus often says: "Seems legit!" Actually, I agree completely. It's an extremely logical progression based on known human activity. Come to think of it, it's the most logical progression I've ever heard. Nice one, Paul!
@Kevin_Williamson6 жыл бұрын
Another scenario goes like this: the early followers of Jesus believed he lived after death in a spiritual form. In the course of retelling and Hellenization, the creed "He is risen!" changed from a spiritual afterlife to a physical resurrection. The amazing 'Road to Damascus' story never appears in Paul's own epistles. That's the later work from the anonymous author of Acts. Some scholars have surmised Paul had certain personal issues, to which he alludes in his epistles. Bishop Spong wrote in his books that he thought it might be the urges of forbidden homosexuality -- thus explaining Paul's desire for celibacy. On hearing whatever version of the Jesus story he had contact, and mixed with his own The End Is Nigh beliefs, he found an answer to his personal demons and became a zealous follower of Christ. That Ah Ha! Moment, along with the colorful language of "once being blind and now can see" turned into the flash of light and vision on the road to Damascus. His version of Christianity was a departure from that taught in Jerusalem. But -- between the Roman decimation of Jerusalem (most likely killing off most of the original followers), Paul's prolific travels outside of Palestine, and the later suppression of alternate gospels as Orthodoxy was forming -- Paul's version won the day. I know. Less fun and less mental issues and actual visions.
@Paulogia6 жыл бұрын
I'd put that together with general "psychotic break" moment for Paul... we don't need to know his exact motivations to posit he had one, and the story stays the same.
@Kevin_Williamson6 жыл бұрын
True.
@zapkvr6 жыл бұрын
Nice work. I read Wilson's book on Paul and he doesn't mention Paul's conversion was not from Paul himself.
@paradisecityX06 жыл бұрын
That scenerio has no basis in reality
@Kevin_Williamson6 жыл бұрын
@@paradisecityX0 -- OK. Why, exactly? What is potentially unrealistic about it?
@markoshunАй бұрын
I like this. It’s a great possible explanation without any supernatural ‘shenanigans’. They didn’t, but even if the gospel writers had claimed they were eyewitnesses, made up/embellished/misheard stories is a far cry more plausible than ‘resurrected god who we’ve never seen since’. Sometimes I wonder how this is still even a thing. 🤷♂️
@roblovestar91596 жыл бұрын
Paul had PTSD?! I'm thinking temporal lobe epilepsy (known to cause hyper-religiosity in some instances) is more likely...
@LisaForTruth5 жыл бұрын
Yes, Rob; it's actually Gecshwind's syndrome, commonly, though not always, found in TLE: hyper-religiosity, hyper-graphia, hyposexuality, and hyper-emotionality
@soukai3 жыл бұрын
You don't even need a real Jesus to explain Christianity, oppressed people will turn to their sacred scriptures to find savior figures, and then somewhere along the line you need to invent a real Jesus in order to stop people with visions from tempering with your business.
@Mike-rp8ev6 жыл бұрын
I believe in logic and facts great job Paulogia..
@munstrumridcully6 жыл бұрын
I'm even more of an insufferable skeptic than you; I only _provisionally_ accept logic and evidence as far as it maps to, and helps predict and somewhat control, experience :)
@DeconvertedMan6 жыл бұрын
great thing about logic and facts is, you do not have to believe in them, they are true and work ever single time.
@PaulTheSkeptic6 жыл бұрын
You, like me, believe in logic and facts and wailing out a bitchen guitar solo judging by your avatar. Rock on my man. 🎶🔬🔭🎸🎹 Lol.
@flavourlessjosephus29106 жыл бұрын
[ *Mike 3:69* ] | | | | Ə_ə
@Simon.the.Likeable6 жыл бұрын
Logic is just more metaphysics.
@SadisticSenpai616 жыл бұрын
It'd widely been reported that Elvis died. Ppl attended his funeral and everything. However, he's been seen alive and well since. Obviously, Elvis came back to life only he decided to live a normal life because he isn't a big attention-seeker like Jesus.
@LomuHabana Жыл бұрын
We don’t know whether Paul “saw” Jesus on the road to Damascus. He doesn’t describe how he “encountered” Jesus. The description is in acts, which was likely written by someone who didn’t have contact to Paul or someone who knew Paul personally, but was writing down myths and hearsay. It could be that Paul simply dreamed of Jesus.
@roadkillscjim5 жыл бұрын
Random story for no reason: Many years ago my friend began dating this "prophet" chick, very very much "let jesus take the wheel" sort of person...At some point they lost they to their car and I kid you not, knelt in the middle of the parking lot and prayed for god to start the car. When it didn't happen, they accused me of poisoning their prayers with disbelief. Eventually the key was found weeks later and isn't god great for the miracle of it?
@Bramble4516 жыл бұрын
1:01 - "Around 30 AD the Middle East was littered with apocalyptic preachers..." I've heard this for years and years and years. It even made it into "The Comic Book History of the Universe". But I haven't seen anyone other than Richard Carrier actually name more than one or two of them, and the list actually seems quite small. And of the two most commonly sited cults - Isis and Mithras - he points out that we know virtually nothing about Mithras except that he probably isn't a resurrection god, and we don't know if he was apocalyptic. I would love to know where this idea came from, and see the list of known apocalyptic preachers!
@normzemke78246 жыл бұрын
The best ancient historian regarding this time in Israel is Josephus. He was a Jewish intellectual living in Judea during the rebellion, captured by the Romans and lived out his days writing a history about the Jews from about 100 BC to the fall of Masada in 74 AD. I have read Josephus’ works and he talks at length about many failed messiahs. I don’t have an exact count, but Josephus mentioned at least half a dozen messiahs who were executed or killed in battle by the Romans. There could easily be dozens more because Josephus only lists the ones which were a serious threat to Rome. I recommend reading his book, “The Jewish War”. It gives a clear picture of the mayhem happening at the time.
@Bramble4516 жыл бұрын
I think it would be interesting to see a video (with the cool drawings) that presents the alternative view promoted by Richard Carrier, that Jesus never existed at all, and that Christianity began with Paul, with the Gospels being basically retconning a life for Jesus - religious fan fiction.
@Mohanchous6 жыл бұрын
From reading the KJV through about five times, I get the impression that Paul was quite intelligent and ambitious. I imagine him growing frustrated with waiting for an elder to die to make room for him to move up in the Jewish religious heirarchy. I bet a ground floor opportunity to assume a leadership role in a burgeoning startup religion would have been very seductive to him. I can imagine Paul confabulating the whole Damascus road story to legitimize his apostolic position. Given Paul's encyclopedic knowledge of Jewish scripture, I wouldn't be surprised if he were largely responsible for the reshaping Jesus into a fulfiller of prophechy; I could easily believe that the sacrificial lamb myth was his construction.
@DJHastingsFeverPitch2 жыл бұрын
Paul, I entirely agree with your Occam's Razor approach to the origin of Christianity, however I have two little nitpicks that may improve the overall presentation and arguments. So, I respectfully present the following: 1. Peter's potential decision to spread the good news of Jesus after his death doesn't really address or explain why Peter would be earnestly preaching that Jesus rose from the dead. 2. The Bible merely says that Paul was one of his aliases, and doesn't say that he changed his name for reason of becoming a Christian
@_Omega_Weapon2 жыл бұрын
Very strong case for the no resurrection/supernatural account. Well done!
@Katzztar6 жыл бұрын
Wow I'm usually not here this soon. Interesting video and a logical theory of how the religion of Christianity started.
@HConstantine6 жыл бұрын
There is no need to postulate a psychotic break with reality in the case of Paul. It is clear that he was a practitioner of what is called Merkhavah mysticism in which he undertook constant intellectual exercises (fasting, repetitive chants and prayers, etc.) with the goal of seeing's god's throne and must have regularly have had mystical visions in an altered state of consciousness. For someone in that situation it is not unusual to have a spontaneous vision. One of the things that that tradition taught that he would see, and which he probably did see, was the great angel who stands by the throne. His 'breakthrough' was to recognize this being (more typically called Metatron, or the recording angel, or by various names) as Jesus. You can read more about this in the Talmud in the story of the four who entered Paradise (b. Hagigah 14b) and in the Merkavah texts, recently translated for the first time: James Davila, Hekhalot Literature in Translation (there is a PDF of this on-line somewhere if you search hard enough, or there used to be) discussion from an anthropological perspective: Davila, Descenders to the Chariot. And for Paul and Merkavah Mysticism: Alan F. Segal, Two Powers in Heaven _____, Paul the Convert
@greymalkinfishing6 жыл бұрын
"and probably did" -- you must be using some definition of the word "probable" with which I am previously unfamiliar.
@HConstantine6 жыл бұрын
@@greymalkinfishing Are you suggesting that there is no no such thing as mystical experience? There is a large body of peer-reviewed scientific literature by psychologists that suggests that there is (as well as the testimony of innumerable mystics). It doesn't mean that there is anything supernatural involved (as an atheist I certainly don't think that there is), but it is a real and well-studied form of altered consciousness. (sorry for the double posting to Mephisto [I didn't realize the computer was signed to the wrong account]).
@greymalkinfishing6 жыл бұрын
@@HConstantine I was bothered by the "[met an angel] which he probably did" and referenced the Talmud. You appeared to believe in particular angels, but we're fine with Jesus not being divine; it seemed a contradiction.
@HConstantine6 жыл бұрын
@@greymalkinfishing I'm using emic terms--the language that practitioners of this form of mysticism themselves used.
@PaulTheSkeptic6 жыл бұрын
Yeah, that sounds like what I had in mind. I probably heard that somewhere and forgot the details. Thanks. Either way it's more likely. Even if he had an actual hallucination, they're not really all that rare. Anyone can have them and they can be brought on by all kinds of things. This is one of my favorite KZbin series on religion and atheism. kzbin.info/aero/PL9D9336926EF60BB0 I highly recommned the whole series but part 6 is about hallucinations and how many people have them.
@marcuslangford46796 жыл бұрын
The portion where no-one met anyone who had anything to do with it started making stuff up, seems to me to be the start of the Jesus myth. I think largely it is based on inaccurate representations of common hero myths of the time coming together to form a localized mythological person. I don't think Jesus himself ever existed.
@williamlarochelle68338 ай бұрын
If, as most Christians believe, Jesus was God incarnate, he would've known (apart from the day and hour [Matthew 24:36]) that the end of the world wouldn't happen for thousands of years--why the neccessity of urging his contemporaries to prepare for it?
@Carlphish2 ай бұрын
@5:25 hearing you say that every other religion did NOT need a supernatural explanation for its spread leads me to think that many who accept Christianity actually will attribute the spread of “false”religions to a supernatural source. Many very vehemently believe that Satan, or some Demon, is actually behind not just the inspiration for that religion, but also its continued existence.
@21158musicman6 жыл бұрын
I recently attended a Catholic funeral and, WOW, what a great way to reaffirm one's atheism! The resurrection was mentioned numerous times to comfort the family of the deceased as to his "afterlife" destination, but through much of the service I kept muttering under my breath, Prove it. Prove it. Prove it." Yes, the success of Xianity, along with many other religions, depends on the gullibility of its followers.
@fredworthmn6 жыл бұрын
You were right in not saying anything during the service. I once went to a funeral where the Episcopalian priest stated that "Jesus is NOT a myth!" and glared into the sanctuary as if daring anyone to disagree with him. I, like you, just let it go because that was not the time to upset anyone.
@mileslegend71404 жыл бұрын
1. What is it about hope that prevents an idea from being true. 2. What proof/evidence would be enough to convince you.
@brim-skerdouglasson Жыл бұрын
it’s a funeral and your so focused on the religion of the mourning instead of the people them selves. You sound like a child.
@AbandonedVoid3 жыл бұрын
I don't think Paul hallucinated anything, I think he just had some vivid dreams.
@brummi98693 жыл бұрын
.... or an acid trip
@vCoralSandsv6 жыл бұрын
Let's play a game of Telephone discussing the importance of Peter Pan and Jif. Just don't tell Suris or Godless Iowan...
@logans.butler2854 жыл бұрын
Are you leaving Shannon Q and the Friendly Atheist out today the game?? How dare you???
@vCoralSandsv4 жыл бұрын
@@logans.butler285 ooo it's been a year.. let's see how much the Peter Pan/Jif take has changed... Please opine on the newest peanut butter drama 🤣
@MrJanes-cl5sj3 жыл бұрын
I like it except for one thing: Saul did not have a psychotic break. He was heading to Damascus. The account that he states, namely the bright lights and loss of consciousness, intense visions is consistent with someone passing out from heat stroke as opposed to a psychotic break.
@garycpriestley6 жыл бұрын
A humble and conscientious former believer lays out a reasonable series of mundane events which provide a completely rational, plausible and even evidenciary explanation for the development and growth of a belief system. Theist: "Nawwwww, I reckon Gawd dun it" Atheist: *face-palm*
@cooljams_jams6 жыл бұрын
@Paulogia The materialist, legend theory does not account for the facts. The comment section so far seems to be equivocating "logic" with "skepticism" and it's an unfortunate disservice to the justification of conclusions. I am skeptical of your justification for this style of skepticism. Dismissing the accounts of post-burial appearances of Christ as the hallucinations of Peter and Saul (granting the plausibility of such hallucinations in and of themselves) still does not remotely account for the data of the actual relationships, journeys, and councils of the early followers. This theory merely accounts for a materialist way the sect could have grown enough to be recognized by Rome. Paulogia wins no Occam's Razor; he's running exactly the opposite way. To explain the chain of events of the evidence that we still have, this theory inserts several assumptions: 1. post-traumatic hallucination by Peter, 2. Concession of the truth of this hallucination by James and John 3. Late authorship of any accounts of Yeshua of Nazareth by non-Aramaic speakers 4. Guilt-induced hallucination by Saul 5. The reception of Saul's accounts by contemporary (yet still somehow skeptical) Jews. To use the ignition analogy, it is as though he's saying the spark plugs were replaced by box matches, and the pistons were replaced by Hungry Hungry Hippos, but the car still started. And by the way, it made it to the office in the morning before rush hour. How in the world are we calling this using Occam's Razor? This version, among other versions, of the materialist, legend theory does not account for the combination of these evidences: 1) The size of Christianity by 64 CE acknowledged by Tacitus enough to be called a class of people in Rome, "first starting in Judea and then into Rome," and an "immense multitude" whose burning bodies were used as nightly illumination in Rome after the fire. --Peter, convincing James and John of the reality of his hallucination, and Saul's guilt hallucination would not be enough to initiate the size of such a sect demographically amid skeptical Jews. The sort of skepticism that breeds the hallucination-legend theory requires a historical snobbery that you are less ignorant and more objective to be skeptical than the contemporary Jewish converts. 2) The early worship of Christ as a god certainly BY the advent of the 2nd century, if not well before, accounted by Lucian and Pliny (non-Christians). The Gospel of John is established to have been plausibly written by the apostle John himself, because we have a manuscript portion of the text from Egypt by 125 CE, the whole of which describes the deity of Christ in detail. These 3 are dated before the skeptic's dating of Mark, Matthew, and Luke. The 1st century Didache also identifies Jesus as Lord. 3) "There is an increasing trend among scholars toward considering the Jerusalem Council as historical event. An overwhelming majority identifies the reference to the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 with Paul's account in Gal. 2.1-10, and this accord is not just limited to the historicity of the gathering alone but extends also to the authenticity of the arguments deriving from the Jerusalem church itself.", Philip, "The Origins of Pauline Pneumatology: the Eschatological Bestowal of the Spirit", Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2, Reihe, p. 205 (2005). Mohr Siebeck. --The legend theory does not account for the nature and players involved in the Jerusalem Council. The reassembly of apostles simply could not have had so much to dispute about over the sola fide nature of salvation for the Gentiles at 50-51 CE in Jerusalem if the supposed legend of the true resurrection were concocting only in the Greek-speaking neighbor regions decades and decades later by means of telephone. 4) The survival of the Jerusalem church recounted by Eusebius by exodus to Pella before the Jerusalem siege in 70 CE, then repatriation and succession under Symeon as head of the Jerusalem church. He recounts this as happening while many of the original disciples were still alive. --The surviving Christians therefore were not just the "Helenistic", Pauline Christians, but necessarily included the Jewish Christians who continued to identify Yeshua as the risen Lord. This legend explanation presupposes that the written accounts of the risen Yeshua were initiated by non-Aramaic speaking, non-eyewitnesses. This late authorship theory was constructed on circular collaboration, it presupposed the linguistic abilities of the apostles, and has since been refuted by later discovered, yet earlier manuscripts. This video's legend theory is itself an unfit sociological/demographic analysis of the start of this 1st century sect. It's an empty, reactionary accounting for a couple of the events to insert a materialist explanation for them, but fails to account for the majority of the data of the start of the sect. It's a circular argument that 'since the whole of the Bible is unreliable, any part of it is not evidence for anything.' This is also the fallacy of division. But yet why do the accounts of the risen Yeshua include appearances to many people? How would that have initiated in the observed timeline? How confidently can we rule out the written accounts of each appearance as legend? Beyond the previously listed and now comparing with his other video on the reurrection, the Paulogia's legend proposal is an unfit explanation for the -missing body the Jewish leaders were motivated to find -Romans' two-fold motivation to confirm dead body, including after having identified the new sect as a 'nuisance.' -belief of the original apostles (at least several present) by 51 CE in the Jerusalem Council that life after death was extended to Gentiles through this Yeshua. (This is juxtaposed with the conversion of former Pharisees at the same time.) -the presence of the alleged eye-witnesses in Jerusalem by the time the resurrection of Yeshua was established Christianity; present to confirm or deny their post-crucifixion meetings with that Yeshua. Taking the consensus-events of the 1st century in Jerusalem, the Occam's Razor explanation is that this Yeshua somehow stopped being dead. Just as it is plainly recorded. But you will not accept that so long as you pre-dismiss any non-materialist cause as an unfit account of the effect. So instead, you will delude yourself that a simpler answer is to insert hallucination, deception, mass creation of false memory, and conspiracy. A true skeptic would accept the plain evidence, and would be ashamed of the proposal that the sect was established on a legend.
@vlachorumsapiens55716 жыл бұрын
Thank you for your edifying commentary! To put it in simple terms, the evidence in favor of Christianity is by far more weighing than the weak pseudo-argumentative gymnastics against it. If you only look at the prophetic narrative beginning with the Old Testament and finishing with the New Testament, it is absolutely mind-boggling how these people who lived centuries apart from one another accurately described scenarios of future events which were later fulfilled to the very letter. There is no victory against Christianity! You'd have to be completely deluded or intellectually dishonest to even attempt to dismantle every single point which proves the truthfulness of Christianity. By their own words they are condemned!
@Nebukanezzer6 жыл бұрын
A true skeptic would accept the plain evidence? We are. You aren't. You're looking at the evidence having already reached your conclusion. You are biased because your entire self-image depends on the evidence showing you what you want to see. Feel free to explain the accounts of miracles and prophecies in dozens of other religions, too.
@thealsoperson23726 жыл бұрын
I appreciate the thoroughness and the amount of research in this comment. However, for me the bottom line is this: I don't buy that a person came back from the dead. It's not because I'm a materialist, I think in this case the material/non-material distinction is a red herring. The plain fact is, people are not known to rise from the dead either by material means or any other means. I'm sure you would agree this is a good reason to be extremely skeptical of any claim that a person has risen from the dead, but it seems like we would differ on just how skeptical. When you say: "you will delude yourself that a simpler answer is to insert hallucination, deception, mass creation of false memory, and conspiracy. " I think "well when you say it like that, it all sounds a bit absurd, but not nearly as absurd as a person actually coming back from the dead." To Paulogia's explanation, I can say it's a bit of a stretch, but stranger things have happened. That's not something I can say about the resurrection hypothesis; it's on a whole other level. However, lest you think I'm just trying to avoid engagement with your argument, I must admit I'm confused by a few of your points: 1. Surely the success of Paul's missionary work shows that it is possible for one man's alleged visionary experience to end up converting large numbers of people. After all, the "great multitude" of Christians in Rome is primarily because of him, isn't it? You seem to be saying it would take more than one or two visions to lead to the similar success in Palestine because Jews were more skeptical of Christianity, but after all, most Jews did remain unconvinced. I don't know how you're determining just how much conversion a certain number of visions could be expected to effect. 2. "But yet why do the accounts of the risen Yeshua include appearances to many people? How would that have initiated in the observed timeline?" I don't see why that presents any special difficulty. A story of appearance to one person can easily turn into stories of appearances to many. I mean, do you believe that he really appeared to five hundred people at once? 3. Your points 3) and 4) seem to be responding to things that just aren't in the video or implied by it. 4. You say Paulogia's videos provide an unfit explanation for the missing body of Jesus but don't say why the explanation he provides - that Jesus was most likely buried in an unmarked grave - is unfit.
@tom_curtis6 жыл бұрын
[6:00] "Disciples died for their belief? There are no historical or even biblical records that say any of the 12 disciples did." Acts 12:2 "He [King Herod Agrippa] had James the brother of John beheaded ..." The James in question is the brother of John the Apostle, and was himself one of the apostles, and referred to by Paul (along with Peter and John) as one of the pillars of the church. Speaking of Peter and Paul, Clement of Rome wrote in the first century: 1Clem 5:1-6 "But, to pass from the examples of ancient days, let us come to those champions who lived nearest to our time. Let us set before us the noble examples which belong to our generation. By reason of jealousy and envy the greatest and most righteous pillars of the Church were persecuted, and contended even unto death. Let us set before our eyes the good Apostles. There was Peter who by reason of unrighteous jealousy endured not one not one but many labors, and thus having borne his testimony went to his appointed place of glory. By reason of jealousy and strife Paul by his example pointed out the prize of patient endurance. After that he had been seven times in bonds, had been driven into exile, had been stoned, had preached in the East and in the West, he won the noble renown which was the reward of his faith, having taught righteousness unto the whole world and having reached the farthest bounds of the West; and when he had borne his testimony before the rulers, so he departed from the world and went unto the holy place, having been found a notable pattern of patient endurance." The epilogue of the Gospel of John probably alludes to the recent death of John the brother of James.
@amaryllis05 жыл бұрын
The Acts quote describes murder, not martyrdom. The Clement quote seems to be from after the time, and so it seems likely that it would be influenced by spreading rumours rather than observed events.
@tom_curtis5 жыл бұрын
@@amaryllis0, the Acts quote, more fully, states, "It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. When he saw that this met with approval among the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also." [NIV] As this is stated explicitly to be a persecution, and to be done to curry favour with "the Jews", it is not just a murder that is described, but a matyrdom. 1 Clement was most likely written in the late 1st century AD by Clement, reputedly the third Bishop of Rome (after Peter and Cletus). Given that, he is likely to have known both Peter and Paul and to have been in Rome at the time of their matyrdoms. At the worst, he would have known people who both new Peter and Paul and were in Rome at the time of their deaths. Both points are irrelevant, however. Paulogia's claim was the complete absence of biblical or historical evidence that any of the 12 disciples died for their belief. In fact Acts says of James the brother of John that he died for his belief. Hence he is wrong about the biblical evidence. And 1 Clement says that Peter died for his belief, and hence their are historical records saying at least one of the twelve died for their belief. He is therefore simply wrong, and employing an conventionalist strategy to evade the evidence does not make it go away.
@qqqmyes45094 жыл бұрын
Tom Curtis I think Cyan Griffin’s point about the Acts quote is that it describes beheading due to Christian belief, but it does not imply that they had the ability to recant their beliefs and avoid beheading. Paulogia does have other videos specifically about the evidence of apostles’ martyrdom
@tom_curtis4 жыл бұрын
@@qqqmyes4509, if that his Cyan Griffin's point, he splitting hairs on textual interpretation in the grand style of a young earth creationist.
@TheKyrix826 жыл бұрын
"And was crucified on a cross" As opposed to a doughnut. Is that even possible? Can God make a doughnut so big that his Son can't nibble his way free of it once nailed to it?
@munstrumridcully6 жыл бұрын
Hey, I've encountered dunkin donuts so stale that God himself could not nibble, break or tear his way free from those lumps of concrete! ;) ( *JK* , for clarity to avoid Poe's Law, lol )
@alexveldhuis60046 жыл бұрын
Do you have Dough nails?
@condorboss33396 жыл бұрын
Donutfixion? I want the hole story!
@cysenscarlet52056 жыл бұрын
I always speculated Saul/Paul was a genius, charismatic, sociopathic conman in the same manner of Joseph Smith or Jim Jones. Paul's story took root much more effectively in ancient times. For example, Americans could all be followers of David Koresh if he was born in a different time.
@friendlybanjoatheist54644 жыл бұрын
Paul. I think the “wrong tomb” theory deserves more consideration. Joseph had the body and his family to temporarily, that was the original intent, and first thing Sunday morning he had it removed. What is implausible about this? And we have absolutely no reason to think he would’ve informed the disciples about this. I am puzzled that this Possibility doesn’t get more attention. Thanks for these great videos, by the way.
@quantumrobin46276 жыл бұрын
Your are a treasure here on KZbin, thank you!
@Paulogia6 жыл бұрын
thank you, CIL!
@gilmontaubam6 жыл бұрын
"Pffft, who needs reason when I has the wholly babble to support me!"
@owlbme6 жыл бұрын
💚 *quality content* 💚
@tshymt2 жыл бұрын
It's a "null hypothesis" for all apologist. Great work!
@hermione3muller6746 жыл бұрын
i recommend the books On The Historicity Of Jesus by Richard Carrier and Jesus Mything In Action by David Fitzgerald. We do not even need a Jesus at all, neither Jesus nor Mohammed ever existed. For the nonhistoricity of Mohammed see the book What The Modern Martyr Should Know by Norbert Pressburg.
@1970Phoenix6 жыл бұрын
I am a Richard Carrier fan, but I still think it is more likely than not that the Jesus stories were based on one (or more) real people. Regarding Mohammed, my understanding is that there is no dispute within mainstream scholarship that he certainly existed, and was a single person. Obviously, the stories told about these people are wildly exaggerated or simply fabrications.
@nurudeenoladipo5 жыл бұрын
You are, generally, a terribly bad student, not only of history but of knowledge generally. There has never been any doubt about the existence of Muhammed and the fact that there's no serious historical evidence about Jesus does not mean Muhammed did not exist; if you don't know, then find out...or maybe shut up!
@heckingbamboozled80975 жыл бұрын
@@nurudeenoladipo Your name coincides very well with your comment, mainly because both are arrogant
@Alexa-Raine6 жыл бұрын
Such a detailed telling of the most likely truth. Thank you. ❤️😊
@jaysonstirrup14164 жыл бұрын
As a Christian, I suppose my guard was up watching Paulogia for the first time; it took a few views for me to capture the established purpose of the video: To present one possible explanation of the existence of the Christian faith without the supernatural resurrection. In doing so, the main ingredient is in the implied inaccuracy of the best available historical information. The effort is to make the story as natural as possible eliminating the requirement for the miraculous. (Implying the mindset that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.) OK… My concern is viewers may actually view this material as a basis to reject the miraculous. To those I suggest the following: Perhaps the natural law is not the absolute. Perhaps there are spiritual realities that are manifested in the natural… what is referred to as miracles. But Skeptics like Paulogia, require proof. Sure, that is understandable. That’s why the gospel must be shared with power. It must bring healing, arouse hope, lead to transformation, impulse forgiveness, generate reconciliation, achieve peace and radiate love. This is evidence of the divine, because these things ARE miracles in our lives. Perhaps God’s truths do not fit into the limitations of our understanding. Faith is required. For the many skeptics I encourage you to consider an admiration of faith in the existence of the divine. It’s a beautiful thing and worth seeking out diligently. To the credit of Paulogia, he is seeking truth and simply has arrived to different conclusions. Based on his findings and lack of findings, he’s come up with witty stories and concepts shared to challenge Christians who wrongly over-embellish some arguable-points for evidence of the divine. I suggest that the real evidence is found in one’s personal communion with the Living God.
@Marniwheeler4 жыл бұрын
I like your reply, thanks for watching the video with an open mind. I dont agree with your conclusions, but thats OK. Thank you Jayson.
@tacitozetticci93083 жыл бұрын
My problem is that it makes no sense that one still needs such a mighty amount of hours of research just to understand if christianity is a scam or not (and arguably noone gets there, the journey's conclusion is always faith, or sometimes alleged supernatural experiences, but not everyone is so "lucky" to directly perceive the supernatural with the senses) But it makes no sense because Yahweh DID canonically reveal, so by now we should all consider his existence as something trivial, not even worth the discussions and doubts, we would all believe him - period, right? That's indeed how the narration of the holy texts goes: there everyone believes in Yahweh apart from foreigners and fools/crazy people, the new leap of faith is believing that Yeshua is the true messiah, but the rest of the tradition didn't require faith after all, it was a given. But today evidently, that's not the case, billions of people reject these gods as a whole. The situation is different but in a way I think every single christian still has to secretly or unconsciously explain this with the fact that all the outsiders of christianity are either foreigners or fools. You have to think that or else it just doesn't make sense, god doesn't play hide and seek, why would he? And for you he's so obviously true that you too don't understand how other people can believe otherwise. We have to be billions of blinds. I hope you aren't one of those people who think that non-believers don't really exist and that it's just a way to "sin" and get away with it. So how do you personally justify this situation? How can an omnipotent, willingly revealing god fail at revealing himself? What's the sense of faith? Does god want us to be extremely witty detectives? Didn't he just care about love? Why does he puzzle us and blend himself with other gods from other religions showing us no actual proof? I can already hear some christian answering this with "because other religions are immoral, it's a test of morality" and such but it still doesn't make sense honestly.
@ModernCelt3 жыл бұрын
A few things, can you please explain exactly how you are defining, "faith"? We would need to understand that before we can discuss even the possibility that on should "consider an admiration of faith". At no point in this video does Paulogia suggest that anyone should "reject the miraculous". From my viewings of Paulogia on different channels they are completely open to accepting that miraculous things exist or can occur...IF good evidence to support the assertion that the thing is, indeed, miraculous. Your conjecture, "Perhaps there are spiritual realities..." does nothing to further the conversation. It is speculation and nothing more. Before we can even consider that you would need to define how exactly you are defining and using the word "spiritual". Next you would need to offer some good evidence that anything spiritual exists. THEN you can begin supporting the idea that "spiritual realities" are even a thing. As for your assertion about how one must approach the stories in your book, what, exactly does, "the gospel must be shared with power: even mean? It sounds like a bit of a deepity.You follow this with a collection of assertions about your gospel (At least I THINK that is what you are mean by "IT" when you say, "It must bring healing, arouse hope, lead to transformation, impulse forgiveness, generate reconciliation, achieve peace and radiate love. This is evidence of the divine, because these things ARE miracles in our lives." WHAT must "bring healing, arouse, hope, lead to transformation...". How did you determine that the criteria for IT (still assuming that you are referring to the stories in your book), MUST do these things. Can you share evidence that your gospel has, reliably can, and will do these things? What explanation OF these things have you tested? How have you tested them? Since you conclude that these things are "evidence of the divine" and that "these things are miracles"? You will need to break down each of your claims and assertions, define your terms, and present them in a straight forward way before we can really examine if there is any truth to the things in your reply,
@DJHastingsFeverPitch2 жыл бұрын
Yeah I totally hear you that it seems like he might be encouraging people to reject the miraculous. However, here are some things to consider: The purpose of this video is to respond to the large amount of apologetics that assert that the only way to explain the available facts is with the resurrection. Paul is showing that, contrary to this, you definitely can explain it in a way that is consistent with the natural world and with the available facts. He's not saying anything about whether or not people directly experience God, and he's definitely not using this as a primer on how to tell what is true in general. So, while what you're saying about God and a person's personal experience with him might be compelling, and might be something that would be very powerful and convincing for many people, that's a different topic from what Paul is aiming for and attempting to address in this video.
@personalaccount75342 жыл бұрын
Christianity is the purported solution to the problem it itself creates. If you don’t buy the hell fire, original sin, damnation narrative then there is not Jesus needed. But the church works people up into a state of guilt and self hatred that then leaves the person desperate for any solution and help. They are happy to sell you the solution but the whole premise was wrong. You aren’t sinful, you aren’t damned… just chill and go play with your dog, try to do the best you can in life. Look how nice life actually is before indoctrination begins. Much of the emotions people experience are just emotional manipulation and gas lighting.
@johnjones_15016 жыл бұрын
I think a more simple and probable explanation was that Paul established his religion the same way Joseph Smith did, he took something that was already there, and made up a bunch of stuff about it, in order to place himself at the center, and make lots of money. Rather or not Jesus existed is irrelevant. Though as AronRa likes to point out, the problem isn't that Jesus may not have existed, it's that there were way too many Jesus's, or at least people claiming to be Jesus, running around.
@DjVortex-w6 жыл бұрын
Actually I find it more likely that Paul invented, or at the very least heavily embellished, his story of conversion. It's the same old tired "I was a devout atheist but then I saw the light" story, which is older than dirt.
@TheJimtanker6 жыл бұрын
Absolutely genius! This needs to spread.
@Paulogia6 жыл бұрын
Thanks, Jim!
@COEXISTential6 жыл бұрын
Nicely done!
@cookienibz25786 жыл бұрын
Another excellent video. Very well thought out. Thanks so much!
@msmd32956 ай бұрын
And what would be the reason someone would change their name from Saul to Paul. Trying to hide from authorities, perhaps? Doesn’t make much sense. And why an Anglo-Saxon name ?? Weren’t ancient Hebrews sufficiently proud of their heritage they would see fit to change names ??
@CallMeChato6 жыл бұрын
Here is another explanation I heard while traveling through the UK. BBC radio had several biblical scholars on and their premise was that there was no resurrection to begin with. As Christianity gained dominance, often by force through the region, they were soundly defeated by the Pics in the region we call Britain. Christianity’s next attack was to set up small churches and try to replace the Pic clan’s demi gods with Christianity’s growing number of saints like George, etc. This worked well except when it came to fighting under the flag of Jesus because the turn the other cheek stories did not resonate with the warriors, so they came up with the rising from the dead story and that worked well and so it stuck. I found that eminently plausible.
@alvedonaren4 ай бұрын
Sorry, but that theory is insane. It would mean that every single document gospel and epistle that speaks about the resurrection, as well as all early Christian commentaries and quotations of these texts, are forgeries written literal centuries after the fact. And all the old manuscripts we have of these texts would have to be later forgeries that can somehow fool modern dating methods. And then there's the idea that a theological detail invented solely in a backwater region like Britain would supplant the theology of all the preexisting churches in the Mediterranean, Africa and Middle East, without leaving any evidence whatsoever of this theological struggle.
@briq43396 жыл бұрын
Hey another great video Paulogia. I was wondering if you could share your thoughts on why so many women support misogynistic religions. Atheist Experience touched on this recently but gave a less than satisfactory answer. I think you might have better insights on this topic.
@katamas8326 жыл бұрын
Great explonation. This wins by Occam's Razor
@perplexedpapa6 жыл бұрын
Do you think if Constatine's daughter had not converted to Christianity first that he would have "had the vision" and adopted the belief? Maybe just so he wouldn't have to order her death? I wonder what the world would be like... maybe we would have our flying cars by now for sure. LOL
@Mikri905 жыл бұрын
I know you're joking but I doubt we would be more advanced then we are. Christianity survived not because it had good arguments for it, but because people were gullible and simply didn't know better. If there was no Christianity, something similar would probably fill in the blanks, because even today we have people buying into all sorts of bullshit, imagine what would people fall for in pre-scientific, illiterate and ignorant times. I don't blame the people of the past, they didn't know better, but their is precisely what fueled the rise of monotheism. And once it became the center-point of the Western culture, and taken for granted, it became hard to reverse the damage. It will take a while until it's gone.
@perplexedpapa5 жыл бұрын
@@Mikri90 That was my point. If he had not had the "vision," then converted to Christianity, and then making Christianity the official Roman faith, then outlawing all pagan faiths under threat of death. That gave the Catholic church the power it needed to take over Europe and keep them under their rule until the plauges caused them to give the ability to give "last rights" to the eldest living males of a family because the priests were dying and scared to go to certain areas. This allowed people like Martin Luther to start thinking about the power the Catholic church claimed to hold. (The beginning of the end) Hopefully in a few more generations we will be the majority in control. Fingers crossed! LOL
@Mikri905 жыл бұрын
@@perplexedpapa who knows, I often imagine what kind of alternative paths history could have taken, and would it be for the worse or the best. It is what it is in the end....
@MrMattSax Жыл бұрын
This is great, and seems much more aligned with how ideas spread, grow and evolve. I wonder about Paul though. I think the story of "I once persecuted them and then I saw the light and converted" is so common and alluring as a story I can't help but think Paul took some creative license and allowed the story to grow in his head, like a big fish story. He easily could have tried to talk to the christians he was tasked to persecute and found their theology attractive. On the road to Damascus, perhaps due to heat exhaustion, dehydration, extreme fatigue, etc. and after pondering this new theology, he could have been crushed by the guilt of the damage he had caused to the followers that he had already decided to join, that he had some sort of extreme emotional experience. The bible makes no mention of his companions sharing his vision. Whatever strong, emotional and impactful experience he had, it grew in his head and with retellings until he may have actually been convinced that he really was visited by his new chosen deity. He used his conversations with other christians to form his initial theology, then developed it on his own due to his own preferences. That's why when he met with Peter, they did not agree on their theology. Paul, more fanatical and authoritarian in nature, just chose to aggressively spread his preferred theology and since he chose to write his letters in order to push his theology, those eventually were adopted into the cannon. This explanation is much more in line with how people tend to behave and how stories tend to grow than the "Paul was magically visited by a spirit" tall tale.
@douglasphillips58706 жыл бұрын
Here's my take on the resurrection. There were two preachers named something similar to "Jesus." One of them was executed, and the other wasn't. Rumors started spreading that the living guy was the same guy who was executed. For a modern parallel, look at the Mandela effect. When the horrors of Apartheid reached America there were several stories of injustice and brutality being reported. The story of Nelson Mandela's imprisonment was mixed together in people's minds with other stories, like the brutal death of Stephen Biko. So people thought Mandela was the person killed, Later when he was alive, they created the Mandela effect to explain it.
@chipan91915 жыл бұрын
Douglas Phillips your story is ad hoc and doesn’t explain the empty tomb or the list of eye witnesses provided in 1 Cor 15.
@Nameless-pt6oj3 жыл бұрын
Watch Testify
@wheels58946 жыл бұрын
Thanks for that! I am more or less in agreement with the ideas you present in thatm I do yhink there was likely an actual person called Jesus. Unlike Christians, at least, I think he was one of many itinerant preachers in Galillee at the time. I think that Christians ouoght to consider the main premise of the whole argument - that Jesus was a rather ordinary preacher and not the son of a god. The real problem Christians face is that whilst Jesus is shown in the gospels raising people from the dead and himself being raised from the dead, no one thought raising a person from the dead was in the least oyut of the ordinary ans worth writing down.! All the accounts from the next generation of people who had no access to the events themselves. So Christians should ask themselves whether the fact that no eyewitnesses though to record any of the so-called miracles, the fact that they were added to the story later explains the lack or eyewitness evidence BECAUSE there was no event to witness! Oh, and so far as Paul is concerned, I heard in a video that other day that dating the letters is tougher than one might think as there are no events that can be dated in the original letters. The best we have is Paul being lowered by basket and that doesn't match history of the time. So Paul could be quite a lot later - even after Acts (which defends a person called Paul).
@fred_derf6 жыл бұрын
+wheels5894, writes _"I do yhink there was likely an actual person called Jesus."_ Perhaps, but that doesn't mean the stories about jesus or what he supposedly taught isn't an amalgamation of stories from a number of itinerant rabbis from around the same time.
@Alexa-Raine6 жыл бұрын
Wow, such an amazing dance! 😍❤️💃🙏💕
@p.bamygdala21396 жыл бұрын
@wheels, the story you refer to about Paul in 2 Corinthians has me perplexed as well. But here's the tricky part. The time stamp, namely Arestas the King of Damascus is the problem. Aretas III was King of Damascus in 100 BCE! Waaaaay before Jesus! Apologists try to say that the passage meant Arestas IV. But he wasn't king of Damascus. He was ruling far away. Damascus was under Roman control then. Plus, Arestas IV died in 40 CE, long before Paul's supposed letters dated in Acts. Acts is fiction though from what I've read. I wonder if the whole mention of Arestas in Paul's letters was a later Christian interpolation, trying to guess when Paul preached (and not having the other gospels yet to cross-reference). I also have my doubts that Paul even existed. He seems to be a perfect amalgam of other characters including Apollonius of Tyana ("Pol") and Orpheus. They all went on the same journey, city for city! The whole damn thing is FUBAR.
@EngelsFermin6 жыл бұрын
you look buffed ,, are u working out???????
@mzeewatk8466 жыл бұрын
He was like totally resurrected! Even his foreskin grew back! :)
@LarryJones-v1f16 күн бұрын
This is a great natural explanation for how Christianity got off the ground. Good job, Paulogia! 💪
@realLsf2 ай бұрын
If there’s an objective truth to the “resurrection”, I think Paul’s assessment is closer to it than the Bible’s
@shizanketsuga86966 жыл бұрын
No, no, no, you got it all wrong. _Clearly_ the best explanation for these facts is that Jesus is resurrected and is LORD. Ouch! I doesn't hurt my brain any less when I write it myself instead of SJ. Seriously, great video! :)
@Raiseflag_Surrender6 жыл бұрын
I've watched your account of the origin of Christianity with growing disbelief and amusement. Ok, so let me point out some contradictions in your story: 1. Ок, let us suppose (for the sake of the argument) that Jesus of Nazareth was a historical figure, preached something, somehow offended Rome and was crucified and never risen from the dead. 2. Then you somehow assume that all early disciples disappeared except two. Question 1 - why didn't they also disappear? Were they not afraid that they might be crucified too? Question 2 - nowhere in your story the two real disciples ever try to promote teachings of Christ. Why didn't they never write down anything and let the others write it? 3. The problem of consistency of early manuscripts then rises. Why there are hundreds of copies of four Gospels, almost word for word, without substantial changes to the story? Why the four writers who invented Gospels from urban legends, wrote them in such a way that there is the whole narrative's consistency but they differ in details? Did the inventors know each other? Was it a conspiracy? And why poor uneducated inventors wrote in conspiracy when they were just passing urban legends, following a hobby of theirs? 4. The character of Paul is problematic in your story. He was a Pharisee, he was an educated person, he was sent to persecute the sect which he thought threatened his beloved oral teachings and Torah. His conscience was clear, he was an ancient man, not your contemporary modern person with guilt complex. He was accustomed to early death, he saw killings and killed others himself. Why did he suffer sudden guilt-ridden trip with Jesus there? Who was Jesus to him, a persecutor, but some unknown and distant figure? Why didn't he hallucinate his mother, his father? For example, perhaps you will kill someone and hide the body (sorry, I say so only for the sake of an argument, no offense). Do you think you'd then be experiencing hallucination of some distant relative of the deceased of whom you know almost nothing? And even if we assume that he experienced hallucination (a single one) do you think he would simply believe it? He had no reason to do so. The demons also could send hallucinations for all he knew. When modern people nowadays see one hallucination they run in search of mental health professional, when ancient people saw one - they ran in search of an exorcist. 5. The Gospels were written shortly afterwards of crucifixion of Christ - we have historical and archeological data to prove it. Why did the Romans or members of Jewish sanhedrim never produced any witnesses to stop the urban legend for good? 6. Why did Christianity begin as one movement? From your story we know that there never was any clear leaders of the movement except few figures which rarely met together. Why was it not 2 or 3 religions instead of one? Why not 100 sects and cults? For example in India 500 years B.C. there were many philosophical traditions and soon two religions appeared - Jainism and Buddhism. Jewish culture of the time when Christianity appeared was not a unified one. It had many religious sects and groups. So why one religion? 7. How could Christianity spread so widely so fast? It is one thing to pass some urban legends in one culture but Christianity transcended the boundaries of Jewish culture very soon and became popular. Remember they didn't have TV or Internet back then, not even press. Mormonism, Jehovah's witnesses spread during one hundread years gaining millions of followers because they were spread by modern means of communication. How could a story of Jewish criminal put to death by the authorities be so attractive to Greeks of Romans? Ok, they could say - you're Jewish and we know all Jewish people are crazy, so we will just worship our gods - go away. Or they could even throw them in jail. So maybe they would have several dozens of Greek and Roman followers in 100 years, not thousands and tens of thousands. 8. How is that no urban legend ever became world-famous religion? Each world-famous religion has its founder, the followers and written history which no one doubts. And urban legends produced only sects or cults which had roots in previous culture but no new teachings. Yet here we see a bunch of anonymous impostors inventing a wholly new religion that threatened authorities of Judea and Rome and never was suppressed or never died out. Why? We know why Buddhism survived - Buddha found a rich sponsor, we know how Islam survived - Muhammad was a strong political and military leader. The bunch of impostors had nothing, nothing except the very poor resources of the first followers. Christianity was rightly named by one critic - 'religion of beggars and slaves'. So how did it survive? 9. The last thing is how did the Christianity attract people throughout the ages? The disciples-impostors were long gone by then so it must have been the teaching. The new wonderful teaching that set so high moral standard that was not surpassed by modern culture. How can that be? And who is the author of that teaching? The author of it should be some impossible genius, but we do not see the traits of such genius in Paul or Peter, or John. They are clearly ordinary men. Also the founder of Christianity must have been a respected moral teacher. But can christian-killing Paul be such teacher where would he find words to describe morals if, by your own admission, he was a convert with deep guilt? And all others are no teachers as well. So, in short, your story is a story of a religion that could never exist in reality. You were so sure of your initial axiom that 'any natural explanation would easily beat the supernatural one' that made up totally impossible story. It is not 'boring or mundane' - it is unbelievable. I will not here immediately jump to the conclusion that Jesus Christ did indeed rise from the dead (which I believe) but I see that your explanation (sorry for the harsh analysis on my part) doesn't satisfy me.
@LisaForTruth6 жыл бұрын
Paul could have also had a stroke, Paul :)
@Paulogia6 жыл бұрын
Heh. Sure. The point is Paul had a personal experience that didn't involve a resurrected Jesus.
@LisaForTruth6 жыл бұрын
Yeah; I just wanted to let everyone know :) Didn't mean to steal your thunder! LOL
@philsaspiezone6 жыл бұрын
Or temporal lobe epilepsy?
@LisaForTruth6 жыл бұрын
philsa-yes, or TLE. I have a channel that talks about religion; might want to check it out :)
@farmercraig60803 жыл бұрын
@@LisaForTruth Paul’s meeting with Jesus seems legit. As the people with him saw the light and heard the voice of Jesus. Then they witnesses Paul going from seeing to blindness. Paul wasn’t faking it.
@lostfan505410 ай бұрын
Paul, in your hypothetical explanation, why would James the Brother of Jesus join Peter and John? He didn't follow Jesus during the ministry of Jesus. Why would he, after his brother's execution for treason, want to be part of Peter's movement after Jesus' death? James became the leader of the church in Jerusalem. Why would he do this?
@Paulogia10 ай бұрын
First, we don't know that James didn't during his ministry... that's one possible interpretation of questionable texts. Second, we have no idea what Peter was saying nor how convincing he was... James may well have become convinced through simple persuasion or even social contagion. Third, we can't rule out more nefarious reasons like envy, lust for power, desire for money, motivation to appease his mother, or anything else at all. To pretend that the only reason he might take up a mantle is a veridical risen appearance is short-sighted.
@MrMortal_Ra8 ай бұрын
@@Paulogia”First, we don’t know that James didn’t during his ministry… that’s one possible interpretation from questionable texts.” Why is it “one possible” interpretation exactly? I’m certainly open to others however, I cannot see how John 7:5 can be anymore explicit than “For not even his brothers believed in him”. No early Christian would dare attack a prominent leader in the church by claiming he was once Jesus’ enemy, (essentially) notes Gerd Lüddemann, the Resurrection of Christ: A historical inquiry, Pages 81-83 and Mike Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, Pages 440-460. Although I know you would probably contest this. “Second, we have no idea what Peter was saying nor how convincing he was…” what would Peter be saying other than things like “guys, I saw Jesus’ appear to me and say so and so and then disappear”? “Third, we can’t rule out more nefarious reasons like envy” why would James have envy? What things would James feel envy towards? Boldly proclaiming that there dead executed, crucified, shamed, embarrassed, cursed, false messiah had been bodily resurrected? What would Peter have that James didn’t or couldn’t? “lust for power” power in what exactly? Power in a small minor, poor peasantry, persecuted group? “desire for money” what money? The disciples were and reminded in Jerusalem a poor peasantry minor group for years, there followers were also of the peasantry class. “motivation to appease his mother” everyone wants to appease there mother, what they don’t typically do is believe that a dead and buried executed man had been resurrected, simply for appeasement.
@ke4uyp6 жыл бұрын
How did Jesus find guys named Peter, John, James, Matthaw, Andrew, Philip, Thomas & Simon in the Middle East?