Does this prove Jesus didn't exist? No. What it does do, however, is clearly lay out why the current claims of "evidence" don't stand in any way worthy of proving that he did.
So the total lack of any credible supporting evidence isn't enough to make you doubt a claim? What would it take for you to doubt?
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It's a matter of faith. Either you have it or you don't.
Faith is belief without supporting evidence, and I don't play that game. Or, if you like, "faith is believing in something you know ain't true", as per Samuel Clemmons, writing as Mark Twain.
But Jack Ryan, the central character of the story, is a complete work of fiction. Yet, if this book were treated the way theists treat the OT and NT, Ryan's actual existence would be unquestioned. That's the entire problem with your position.
Well said.
The unquestioning belief in the error-ridden text of the bible by most theists is always a thing of wonder for me. One one hand they discount things for which there is considerable proof, yet manage to suspend their disbelief for the most fantastical claims.
For example, many of them simply ignore the failed prophecies in the bible (flat-out denying them in many cases) while refusing to believe in something like evolution which has been proven beyond any shadow of a doubt.
To induce cognitive dissonance one can hardly find a better source than the bible.
And in some ways I don't blame them- most believers were brought up being told fairy tales from birth by authority figures whom they trusted (parents, church members, etc), and who were lying to them or who had been mislead themselves in the same way. Coming to terms with the fact that much of what your parents told you is difficult for most people, but after you reach an age where you can reason for yourself you should be able realize that it's all a load of utter nonsense.
Once you realize that there is no god, the universe and everything in it suddenly makes perfect sense. It all behaves exactly as it would if there was no magical, omnipotent, invisible super-being controlling everything behind the scenes.
It's known that Bill Clinton thinks with his dick from time to time and likes young women.
Thank goodness that's not true of Trump. And he has the decency to marry his pornstar child brides after cheating with them on his previous wives.
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As long as she was able to get what she wanted she let the men play around with the provision that if they crossed her then she would reveal their play.
And don't forget that no other woman is history has ever done such a thing.
They are called 'The Gospels' and are collected in a book called 'The Bible' namely 'The New Testament' section.
Oh please, give me a fuckin' break. Did you even read my comment? No one knows who wrote the Gospels, but we DO know that they were written long after Jesus' supposed death. In other words (pay attention) they in no way prove anything about him, including whether or not he existed.
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As for there being common tropes with prior religions, you said it yourself, these prior religions have common tropes among themselves as well. Oh and remember the twelve tribes of Israel? The slaughter of the newborns in the Ancient Testament regarding Moses? Is the story about Noah in the Ancient Testament a copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh?
You're proving my point for me but you're too stupid to realize it. Were all of the common tropes with all their miracles real? Were all of those stories true in terms of their extra-super-magical events?
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Also just because Germany invaded France through Belgium twice in WWI and WWII does that mean WWII never happened?
I may be wrong, but I think we have hundreds of thousands of multiple independent accounts along with literally tons of supporting evidence to show that those things happened. Photos, memorabilia, military records, physical evidence, etc etc etc. I'd say there's good reason to believe it happened, unlike the "just-believe-my-story-about-the-guy-who-died-and-came-back-to-life" Jesus myth.
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Repetition of events isn't proof of it being a lie.
And it isn't proof of it being true, either. When you have duplicate fantastical stories all of which claim the same thing, you aren't being unreasonable to think that they were patterned after one another down through the ages.
If the stories had been about a guy going to the store and getting a sandwich, sure, I'd believe it. But the whole virgin birth, three wise men, star in the sky, died and came back to life thing starts to sound like repeated bullshit the second or third time around. Certainly by the 5th or 6th time, unless you're just incredibly gullible.
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For all I know he was in a deep coma and never actually died.
"For all I know..." I rest my case. So in other words, as far as you know, the story is bullshit.
You're making this waaaaay too easy, but thanks for playing.
And again, there are literally hundreds of well-known historical figures that we could say the SAME THING about. Are you also going to go on a quest to remove them from history books on the same basis? (Homer, Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Democritus, Sun Tzu, Confucius, Socrates, etc., etc. The best you can say about most of these figures is that they MIGHT have existed as a physical person, but we don't have clear evidence.
But for most of the people you mention, we do have pretty clear evidence that they really did exist.
We have multiple contemporary accounts of all of these historical figures (Homer, Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Democritus, Sun Tzu, Confucius, Socrates, etc) from their own time and by writers who were not unknown.
In most cases there are sculptures or paintings or drawings or written records of these people created during their life. If you don't see the glaring difference in the quality of the evidence between them and Jesus then I'm not sure what else to say.
To think that Jesus could have done the things he supposedly did and not leave a single trace behind is to suspend one's disbelief to the point of epic gullibility.
I mean, seriously- he died and then came back to life, and no one wrote a single fucking word about it?
but using criteria applied to other historical figures from that era, Jesus has a stronger than average case for historicity.
Sorry, but this is utter bullshit, and in fact the exact opposite is true. As I said before, there are absolutely no contemporaneous accounts that speak of Jesus. Not a single one. As far as the historical record is concerned he just did not exist. There's not a single carving, sculpture, poem, painting, drawing or mention of him from the time in which he supposedly lived. Nothing, zero, zip, nada.
There are, however, plenty of accounts both written and physical of other well known figures who existed around the time during which Jesus supposedly lived.
Augustus of Primaporta, Dioscurides, Caesar Augustus, Emperor Ai of Han, etc etc etc....these people and many others were written about, had statues and figurines caved of them, paintings were made of them, and so on. But not a single record ANY ANY KIND exists for a guy who (supposedly) walked on water, fed 5,000 people with "five barley loaves and two small fish", who healed the sick, cured the blind, raised a man from the dead, healed lepers, and who then died and then came back to life.
Apparently none of that was noteworthy enough for anyone to jot down even a single note about. At the same time, however, the scribes and scholars of the time were busy recording the minutiae of everyday life, including the people mentioned above and many others...but not a single word about this amazing person, the "Son of God". Not. One. Fucking. Word.
The most reasonable explanation, the ONLY one that makes any sense at all is that he didn't exist, which is why he left not a single trace whatsoever.
1) First off, it was 60 years after his death, so he could not have seen or known Jesus personally.
2) Even worse, the writings by Josephus are now widely recognized as fake, that is, they're forgeries:
http://www.richardcarrier.info...: In the TF, both grammatically and thematically, the] responsibility for the death of Jesus lies with Josephus’s fellow-countrymen, the Jews, not with the Romans, and in this too the Testimonium is hard to reconcile with Josephus’s denunciation of Pilate’s crimes against the Jews. The Josephus of the Testimonium is represented as aligning himself with the Christians (versus the Jews) and admitting that the blame for the crucifixion of Jesus the Messiah lies with the Jews; it need hardly be said that such an admission on Josephus’s part is inconceivable.
Wikipedia: Many Christian apologists cite Josephus to attempt to argue that even the "pagan"/Jewish/etc. Josephus acknowledged Jesus as a savior/miracleworker/etc., and that one should therefore believe in Jesus' divinity. However, citing Josephus as a source on Jesus argument has numerous flaws. For some reason these facts almost always come as a surprise to Christians who cite him. It's almost as if they just look up quotes without any understanding of what constitutes valid sources for determining historical events.
In Book 18, Chapter 3, Paragraph 3 of the Antiquities of the Jews (written ca. 93-94 CE), Josephus writes (Whiston’s translation):[2][3] Now, there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works — a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal man amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct to this day.
Is the Testimonium Flavianum authentic? There are several reasons to think not:
Scholarly consensus: Most scholars admit that at least some parts, if not all, of this paragraph cannot be authentic,[4][5] and some are convinced that the entire paragraph is an interpolation inserted by Christians at a later time.[6][7] Even Christian scholars consider the paragraph to be an overenthusiastic forgery,[8][9][10] and even the Catholic Encyclopedia concurs.[11]
Context: This paragraph breaks the flow of the chapter. Book 18 (“Containing the interval of 32 years from the banishment of Archelus to the departure from Babylon”) starts with the Roman taxation under Cyrenius in 6 CE and discusses various Jewish sects at the time, including the Essenes and a sect of Judas the Galilean, to which he devotes three times more space than to Jesus; Herod’s building of various cities, the succession of priests and procurators, and so on. Chapter 3 starts with sedition against Pilate, who planned to slaughter all the Jews but changed his mind. Pilate then used sacred money to supply water to Jerusalem. The Jews protested; Pilate sent spies into Jewish ranks with concealed weapons, and there was a great massacre. Then in the middle of all these troubles comes the curiously quiet paragraph about Jesus, followed immediately by: “And about the same time another terrible misfortune confounded the Jews...” Josephus would not have thought the Christian story to be “another terrible misfortune.” It is only a Christian (someone like Eusebius) who might have considered Jesus to be a Jewish tragedy. Paragraph three can be lift
There are absolutely no contemporaneous accounts that speak of Jesus. Not a single one. As far as the historical record is concerned he just did not exist. There's not a single carving, sculpture, poem, painting, drawing or mention of him from the time in which he supposedly lived.
There is not a single mention in him in military records or dispatches back to Rome (and surely anyone who could command huge gatherings of people in a potentially disruptive province should be of interest). He is not mentioned in the records of Herod’s court nor is he mentioned in the records of the Temple or by any Priests. Surely if he was believed by some to be a prophet and others to be a false prophet some mention of the ruckus he was causing in Judean civic and religious society should have been recorded. Some people like to point to the supposed letters of Pontius Pilate as evidence of Jesus’ life but these were a work of fiction.
Jesus is a composite figure assembled from many, many previous myths that all feature the same story line:
Horus was one of the many Egyptian Gods (3100 B.C.)
He had 12 disciples.
One was born of a virgin in a cave.
Like Jesus, his birth was announced via a star.
And three wise men showed up!
He was baptized when he was 30 by Anup the Baptizer.
He rose a guy from the dead and walked on water.
Lastly, he was crucified, buried like Jesus in a tomb, and resurrected.
Buddha, (563 B.C.)
Healed the sick
Walked on water.
Fed 500 men from one basket of cakes.
Taught a lot of the same things Jesus taught, including equality for all.
He spent three days in jail.
Was resurrected when he died.
Mithra, an ancient Zoroastrian deity with similarities to Jesus (2000 B.C.)
Virginal birth on December 25th.
Swaddled and laid in a manger.
Tended by shepherds in the manger.
He had 12 companions (or disciples).
Performed miracles.
Gave his own life to save the world.
Dead for three days, then resurrected.
Called “the Way, the Truth and the Light.”
Has his own version of a Eucharistic-style “Lord’s supper.”
Krishna, (around 3000 B.C.)
A Hindu God.
Born after his mom was impregnated by a God.
Angels, wise men, and shepherds were at his birth.
Guess what gifts they gave him? Gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
A jealous bad guy ordered the slaughter of all newborns, just as happened with Jesus.
I've given this a bit of thought over the last couple of days, and I still disagree. Curly quotes don't really convey any additional information beyond what straight quotes do. Yes, they may look prettier, but "pretty" isn't a typographic necessity.
If they did truly convey more information then they'd be given dedicated keys on every typewriter and keyboard made in the last 40 years. They're a stylistic convention (which is okay) but I can't find any substantive information anywhere that seems to show that they reduce eye fatigue or strain, or that they make parsing text easier, including quotes within quotes.
Yes, a lot of printed material uses them but there are also plenty that don't. They're just a alternate set of commonly-used set of punctuation marks, and they don't appear to have any drop-dead utility or urgency in their usage. No one says, "I can't read this without curly quotes!" nor does substituting straight quotes cause any loss of information or meaning. Using straight quotes does not seem to cause the loss of any information or reduce readability.
You read tons of stuff on this site and it all uses straight quotes- have you ever been unable to read something here or been unable to parse the information in the text here because of the usage of straight quotes?
"A new Microsoft patent has been published that describes a system that would let its HoloLens glasses track small items like car keys, ultimately helping users find their lost belongings."
This may be useful for absent-minded folks or people with Alzheimer's, but not really for me. For example, for the last 40 years my car keys are in one of three places: in my pocket, on the counter in that little bowl, or in the car's ignition switch. Even though I'm old and decrepit I just don't misplace a lot of stuff. I really can't recall the last time I couldn't find my car keys. Maybe Microsoft could keep track of that. Cortana: "You last misplaced your keys on December 5th, 1987. They were on the coffee table underneath the Barely Legal Perky Hooters magazine."
But for those who are congenitally incapable of remembering where stuff is, please allow Microsoft to tell you where your keys, TV remote, wallet, yogurt, slippers, and current wife happen to be.
Introducing the iMagnet, the cure for Apple's wireless earbuds. Only $79.99 gets you 2 pairs of genuine magnets guaranteed to attract each other without wires. It's like magic! How do the iMagnets work? We don't know, and you don't either, but you'll buy 'em and then you'll buy 'em again after they get lost.
Or you could just buy a pair of decent wired earbuds for $9.99 and plug them into the- oh wait, we took that fucking jack out so you couldn't. Okay, no problem- just buy a new iDongle for $29.99 to replace the one you already lost.
Remember, we're Apple. We don't care, because we don't have to.
What's your take on curly commas and semicolons, btw?/quote>
Curly commas are stylistic but also not critical to reading, but they do go well with serif fonts. I'd probably keep them.
Semicolons- you either love 'em or hate 'em. Personally I think they're a useful construct, particularly as a "joiner" while still serving as a separator. They express that two things are connected in some way but not in the same way a comma does. Personally I find semicolons very useful.
I'm an agnostic on this, but try replacing "curly quotes" by "open and close brackets" and "simple straight quotes" by any single character: say "|" (pipe symbol). In other words, if your argument is correct for quote marks it should also be correct for brackets. Personally I think I prefer a different symbol for opening and closing brackets: why should quotes be different?
That's a whole 'nother discussion we can have here once the shootin' dies down.
Curly quotes, like serif fonts, make text less fatiguing to read.
I call bullshit. Serif fonts are indeed less fatiguing but curly quotes are nonsense, always have been, and always will be. They convey absolutely zero useful information beyond what simple straight quotes do and they are not easier on the eyes in any way.
Curly quotes are useless, they convey absolutely no useful information beyond what simple straight quotes do. They're the confetti of punctuation marks and should just die out along with buggy whips and mustache wax.
Seattle is all in all a decent place to live. It also leads the nation in having the highest rate of car theft, lol, but that's what garages are for.
As for real estate, yes, the market is on fire here. If your asking price is even remotely close to reality you can sell it in no time. A $200K house priced at $230K will sell, no problem, and after the bidding wars you may get $250K or more.
For example, I could *easily* sell my home for triple it's original price and it wouldn't take more than a day or so. Given a 30-day window for competitive bids it would be considerably more than that. I get flyers from real estate agents all the time begging me to sell, and it's tempting, very tempting. But then I'd either have to move a fair distance away or hunt for another home in the same super competitive market, neither of which appeal to me at this time.
Frankly, I expect another housing market crash within the next few years, so if I was smart I'd sell now. But my house payment is super low and I don't want to move, so I'm staying put. Hell, my house payment is less (a lot less) than what most people pay for rent around here.
That would on the other hand allow people with debilitating mental illness to be able to live independently a bit longer. If you got alzheimer, a long progressive mental illness, such assistant would be a boon.
Yep, I would agree with this, it could be very useful to a range of people. And I'm not saying it shouldn't be available, I'm just pointing out the possibilities of unintended consequences.
"it could lead to a future in which you can ask Cortana (or Siri or Alexa) where you left your shoes or if you're out of eggs."
This kind of super-invasive monitoring will be very attractive to police and divorce lawyers.
Janet: "Siri, whose bra is this?" Siri: "Jennifer, my records show that the lacy black bra in your hand belongs to Alice Marie Simmons who was here at 3:52pm on January 9th while giving your husband a blowjob that lasted 7 minutes and 19 seconds. Afterwards they took a shower, using 28.5 gallons of water and 6.2 cubic feet of natural gas for heating. At 4:26pm they consumed the last two Hot Pockets and 16oz of milk. Would you like me to order some more Hot Pockets?"
Slashdot Mirror
Does this prove Jesus didn't exist? No. What it does do, however, is clearly lay out why the current claims of "evidence" don't stand in any way worthy of proving that he did.
So the total lack of any credible supporting evidence isn't enough to make you doubt a claim? What would it take for you to doubt?
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It's a matter of faith. Either you have it or you don't.
Faith is belief without supporting evidence, and I don't play that game. Or, if you like, "faith is believing in something you know ain't true", as per Samuel Clemmons, writing as Mark Twain.
But Jack Ryan, the central character of the story, is a complete work of fiction. Yet, if this book were treated the way theists treat the OT and NT, Ryan's actual existence would be unquestioned. That's the entire problem with your position.
Well said.
The unquestioning belief in the error-ridden text of the bible by most theists is always a thing of wonder for me. One one hand they discount things for which there is considerable proof, yet manage to suspend their disbelief for the most fantastical claims.
For example, many of them simply ignore the failed prophecies in the bible (flat-out denying them in many cases) while refusing to believe in something like evolution which has been proven beyond any shadow of a doubt.
To induce cognitive dissonance one can hardly find a better source than the bible.
And in some ways I don't blame them- most believers were brought up being told fairy tales from birth by authority figures whom they trusted (parents, church members, etc), and who were lying to them or who had been mislead themselves in the same way. Coming to terms with the fact that much of what your parents told you is difficult for most people, but after you reach an age where you can reason for yourself you should be able realize that it's all a load of utter nonsense.
Once you realize that there is no god, the universe and everything in it suddenly makes perfect sense. It all behaves exactly as it would if there was no magical, omnipotent, invisible super-being controlling everything behind the scenes.
It's known that Bill Clinton thinks with his dick from time to time and likes young women.
Thank goodness that's not true of Trump. And he has the decency to marry his pornstar child brides after cheating with them on his previous wives.
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As long as she was able to get what she wanted she let the men play around with the provision that if they crossed her then she would reveal their play.
And don't forget that no other woman is history has ever done such a thing.
Fake news: Pretty much anything from Breitbart or Kellyanne Conway, among others.
Kellyanne Conway, owner of the "Most Punchable Face" award since that little shitbag Martin Shkreli dropped off the radar.
You can tell when Kellyanne Conway is lying because her lips are moving.
"Lawmakers in the country are reportedly hoping it will prevent Russia from interfering in Germany's elections next year."
Lol, good luck with that.
Russia doesn't give a shit if German newspapers get fined and the newspapers don't have the staff, time, or inclination to check every story.
They are called 'The Gospels' and are collected in a book called 'The Bible' namely 'The New Testament' section.
Oh please, give me a fuckin' break. Did you even read my comment? No one knows who wrote the Gospels, but we DO know that they were written long after Jesus' supposed death. In other words (pay attention) they in no way prove anything about him, including whether or not he existed.
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As for there being common tropes with prior religions, you said it yourself, these prior religions have common tropes among themselves as well. Oh and remember the twelve tribes of Israel? The slaughter of the newborns in the Ancient Testament regarding Moses? Is the story about Noah in the Ancient Testament a copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh?
You're proving my point for me but you're too stupid to realize it. Were all of the common tropes with all their miracles real? Were all of those stories true in terms of their extra-super-magical events?
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Also just because Germany invaded France through Belgium twice in WWI and WWII does that mean WWII never happened?
I may be wrong, but I think we have hundreds of thousands of multiple independent accounts along with literally tons of supporting evidence to show that those things happened. Photos, memorabilia, military records, physical evidence, etc etc etc. I'd say there's good reason to believe it happened, unlike the "just-believe-my-story-about-the-guy-who-died-and-came-back-to-life" Jesus myth.
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Repetition of events isn't proof of it being a lie.
And it isn't proof of it being true, either. When you have duplicate fantastical stories all of which claim the same thing, you aren't being unreasonable to think that they were patterned after one another down through the ages.
If the stories had been about a guy going to the store and getting a sandwich, sure, I'd believe it. But the whole virgin birth, three wise men, star in the sky, died and came back to life thing starts to sound like repeated bullshit the second or third time around. Certainly by the 5th or 6th time, unless you're just incredibly gullible.
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For all I know he was in a deep coma and never actually died.
"For all I know..." I rest my case. So in other words, as far as you know, the story is bullshit.
You're making this waaaaay too easy, but thanks for playing.
And again, there are literally hundreds of well-known historical figures that we could say the SAME THING about. Are you also going to go on a quest to remove them from history books on the same basis? (Homer, Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Democritus, Sun Tzu, Confucius, Socrates, etc., etc. The best you can say about most of these figures is that they MIGHT have existed as a physical person, but we don't have clear evidence.
But for most of the people you mention, we do have pretty clear evidence that they really did exist.
We have multiple contemporary accounts of all of these historical figures (Homer, Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Democritus, Sun Tzu, Confucius, Socrates, etc) from their own time and by writers who were not unknown.
In most cases there are sculptures or paintings or drawings or written records of these people created during their life. If you don't see the glaring difference in the quality of the evidence between them and Jesus then I'm not sure what else to say.
To think that Jesus could have done the things he supposedly did and not leave a single trace behind is to suspend one's disbelief to the point of epic gullibility.
I mean, seriously- he died and then came back to life, and no one wrote a single fucking word about it?
but using criteria applied to other historical figures from that era, Jesus has a stronger than average case for historicity.
Sorry, but this is utter bullshit, and in fact the exact opposite is true. As I said before, there are absolutely no contemporaneous accounts that speak of Jesus. Not a single one. As far as the historical record is concerned he just did not exist. There's not a single carving, sculpture, poem, painting, drawing or mention of him from the time in which he supposedly lived. Nothing, zero, zip, nada.
There are, however, plenty of accounts both written and physical of other well known figures who existed around the time during which Jesus supposedly lived.
Augustus of Primaporta, Dioscurides, Caesar Augustus, Emperor Ai of Han, etc etc etc....these people and many others were written about, had statues and figurines caved of them, paintings were made of them, and so on. But not a single record ANY ANY KIND exists for a guy who (supposedly) walked on water, fed 5,000 people with "five barley loaves and two small fish", who healed the sick, cured the blind, raised a man from the dead, healed lepers, and who then died and then came back to life.
Apparently none of that was noteworthy enough for anyone to jot down even a single note about. At the same time, however, the scribes and scholars of the time were busy recording the minutiae of everyday life, including the people mentioned above and many others...but not a single word about this amazing person, the "Son of God". Not. One. Fucking. Word.
The most reasonable explanation, the ONLY one that makes any sense at all is that he didn't exist, which is why he left not a single trace whatsoever.
Flavius Josephus wrote about Jesus twice in 93.
1) First off, it was 60 years after his death, so he could not have seen or known Jesus personally.
2) Even worse, the writings by Josephus are now widely recognized as fake, that is, they're forgeries:
http://www.richardcarrier.info...:
In the TF, both grammatically and thematically, the] responsibility for the death of Jesus lies with Josephus’s fellow-countrymen, the Jews, not with the Romans, and in this too the Testimonium is hard to reconcile with Josephus’s denunciation of Pilate’s crimes against the Jews. The Josephus of the Testimonium is represented as aligning himself with the Christians (versus the Jews) and admitting that the blame for the crucifixion of Jesus the Messiah lies with the Jews; it need hardly be said that such an admission on Josephus’s part is inconceivable.
Wikipedia:
Many Christian apologists cite Josephus to attempt to argue that even the "pagan"/Jewish/etc. Josephus acknowledged Jesus as a savior/miracleworker/etc., and that one should therefore believe in Jesus' divinity. However, citing Josephus as a source on Jesus argument has numerous flaws. For some reason these facts almost always come as a surprise to Christians who cite him. It's almost as if they just look up quotes without any understanding of what constitutes valid sources for determining historical events.
In Book 18, Chapter 3, Paragraph 3 of the Antiquities of the Jews (written ca. 93-94 CE), Josephus writes (Whiston’s translation):[2][3]
Now, there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works — a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal man amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct to this day.
Is the Testimonium Flavianum authentic? There are several reasons to think not:
Scholarly consensus: Most scholars admit that at least some parts, if not all, of this paragraph cannot be authentic,[4][5] and some are convinced that the entire paragraph is an interpolation inserted by Christians at a later time.[6][7] Even Christian scholars consider the paragraph to be an overenthusiastic forgery,[8][9][10] and even the Catholic Encyclopedia concurs.[11]
Context: This paragraph breaks the flow of the chapter. Book 18 (“Containing the interval of 32 years from the banishment of Archelus to the departure from Babylon”) starts with the Roman taxation under Cyrenius in 6 CE and discusses various Jewish sects at the time, including the Essenes and a sect of Judas the Galilean, to which he devotes three times more space than to Jesus; Herod’s building of various cities, the succession of priests and procurators, and so on. Chapter 3 starts with sedition against Pilate, who planned to slaughter all the Jews but changed his mind. Pilate then used sacred money to supply water to Jerusalem. The Jews protested; Pilate sent spies into Jewish ranks with concealed weapons, and there was a great massacre. Then in the middle of all these troubles comes the curiously quiet paragraph about Jesus, followed immediately by: “And about the same time another terrible misfortune confounded the Jews ...” Josephus would not have thought the Christian story to be “another terrible misfortune.” It is only a Christian (someone like Eusebius) who might have considered Jesus to be a Jewish tragedy. Paragraph three can be lift
Jesus never existed.
There are absolutely no contemporaneous accounts that speak of Jesus. Not a single one. As far as the historical record is concerned he just did not exist. There's not a single carving, sculpture, poem, painting, drawing or mention of him from the time in which he supposedly lived.
There is not a single mention in him in military records or dispatches back to Rome (and surely anyone who could command huge gatherings of people in a potentially disruptive province should be of interest). He is not mentioned in the records of Herod’s court nor is he mentioned in the records of the Temple or by any Priests. Surely if he was believed by some to be a prophet and others to be a false prophet some mention of the ruckus he was causing in Judean civic and religious society should have been recorded. Some people like to point to the supposed letters of Pontius Pilate as evidence of Jesus’ life but these were a work of fiction.
Jesus is a composite figure assembled from many, many previous myths that all feature the same story line:
Horus was one of the many Egyptian Gods (3100 B.C.)
He had 12 disciples.
One was born of a virgin in a cave.
Like Jesus, his birth was announced via a star.
And three wise men showed up!
He was baptized when he was 30 by Anup the Baptizer.
He rose a guy from the dead and walked on water.
Lastly, he was crucified, buried like Jesus in a tomb, and resurrected.
Buddha, (563 B.C.)
Healed the sick
Walked on water.
Fed 500 men from one basket of cakes.
Taught a lot of the same things Jesus taught, including equality for all.
He spent three days in jail.
Was resurrected when he died.
Mithra, an ancient Zoroastrian deity with similarities to Jesus (2000 B.C.)
Virginal birth on December 25th.
Swaddled and laid in a manger.
Tended by shepherds in the manger.
He had 12 companions (or disciples).
Performed miracles.
Gave his own life to save the world.
Dead for three days, then resurrected.
Called “the Way, the Truth and the Light.”
Has his own version of a Eucharistic-style “Lord’s supper.”
Krishna, (around 3000 B.C.)
A Hindu God.
Born after his mom was impregnated by a God.
Angels, wise men, and shepherds were at his birth.
Guess what gifts they gave him? Gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
A jealous bad guy ordered the slaughter of all newborns, just as happened with Jesus.
I've given this a bit of thought over the last couple of days, and I still disagree. Curly quotes don't really convey any additional information beyond what straight quotes do. Yes, they may look prettier, but "pretty" isn't a typographic necessity.
If they did truly convey more information then they'd be given dedicated keys on every typewriter and keyboard made in the last 40 years. They're a stylistic convention (which is okay) but I can't find any substantive information anywhere that seems to show that they reduce eye fatigue or strain, or that they make parsing text easier, including quotes within quotes.
Yes, a lot of printed material uses them but there are also plenty that don't. They're just a alternate set of commonly-used set of punctuation marks, and they don't appear to have any drop-dead utility or urgency in their usage. No one says, "I can't read this without curly quotes!" nor does substituting straight quotes cause any loss of information or meaning. Using straight quotes does not seem to cause the loss of any information or reduce readability.
You read tons of stuff on this site and it all uses straight quotes- have you ever been unable to read something here or been unable to parse the information in the text here because of the usage of straight quotes?
"A new Microsoft patent has been published that describes a system that would let its HoloLens glasses track small items like car keys, ultimately helping users find their lost belongings."
This may be useful for absent-minded folks or people with Alzheimer's, but not really for me. For example, for the last 40 years my car keys are in one of three places: in my pocket, on the counter in that little bowl, or in the car's ignition switch. Even though I'm old and decrepit I just don't misplace a lot of stuff. I really can't recall the last time I couldn't find my car keys. Maybe Microsoft could keep track of that. Cortana: "You last misplaced your keys on December 5th, 1987. They were on the coffee table underneath the Barely Legal Perky Hooters magazine."
But for those who are congenitally incapable of remembering where stuff is, please allow Microsoft to tell you where your keys, TV remote, wallet, yogurt, slippers, and current wife happen to be.
Introducing the iMagnet, the cure for Apple's wireless earbuds. Only $79.99 gets you 2 pairs of genuine magnets guaranteed to attract each other without wires. It's like magic! How do the iMagnets work? We don't know, and you don't either, but you'll buy 'em and then you'll buy 'em again after they get lost.
Or you could just buy a pair of decent wired earbuds for $9.99 and plug them into the- oh wait, we took that fucking jack out so you couldn't. Okay, no problem- just buy a new iDongle for $29.99 to replace the one you already lost.
Remember, we're Apple. We don't care, because we don't have to.
What's your take on curly commas and semicolons, btw?/quote>
Curly commas are stylistic but also not critical to reading, but they do go well with serif fonts. I'd probably keep them.
Semicolons- you either love 'em or hate 'em. Personally I think they're a useful construct, particularly as a "joiner" while still serving as a separator. They express that two things are connected in some way but not in the same way a comma does. Personally I find semicolons very useful.
I'm an agnostic on this, but try replacing "curly quotes" by "open and close brackets" and "simple straight quotes" by any single character: say "|" (pipe symbol). In other words, if your argument is correct for quote marks it should also be correct for brackets. Personally I think I prefer a different symbol for opening and closing brackets: why should quotes be different?
That's a whole 'nother discussion we can have here once the shootin' dies down.
if you don't have anything to hide, why worry about privacy?
I have shit to hide.
Who among us doesn't like to wake up and see what fresh horrors have been foisted upon us while we slumbered?
Oh, wait, that would be me. I never check email until after coffee, a bagel, and a bowl of sweet, sweet crack.
Curly quotes, like serif fonts, make text less fatiguing to read.
I call bullshit. Serif fonts are indeed less fatiguing but curly quotes are nonsense, always have been, and always will be. They convey absolutely zero useful information beyond what simple straight quotes do and they are not easier on the eyes in any way.
"Has the Internet Killed Curly Quotes?"
Good god, let us hope so.
Curly quotes are useless, they convey absolutely no useful information beyond what simple straight quotes do. They're the confetti of punctuation marks and should just die out along with buggy whips and mustache wax.
"Last week, Apple's VP of Marketing, Phil Schiller insisted that Consumer Reports' findings didn't match the company's field data"
What's he supposed to say? "Yeah, the whole battery thing is a clusterfuck and Consumer Reports is spot-on."
Seattle is all in all a decent place to live. It also leads the nation in having the highest rate of car theft, lol, but that's what garages are for.
As for real estate, yes, the market is on fire here. If your asking price is even remotely close to reality you can sell it in no time. A $200K house priced at $230K will sell, no problem, and after the bidding wars you may get $250K or more.
For example, I could *easily* sell my home for triple it's original price and it wouldn't take more than a day or so. Given a 30-day window for competitive bids it would be considerably more than that. I get flyers from real estate agents all the time begging me to sell, and it's tempting, very tempting. But then I'd either have to move a fair distance away or hunt for another home in the same super competitive market, neither of which appeal to me at this time.
Frankly, I expect another housing market crash within the next few years, so if I was smart I'd sell now. But my house payment is super low and I don't want to move, so I'm staying put. Hell, my house payment is less (a lot less) than what most people pay for rent around here.
That would on the other hand allow people with debilitating mental illness to be able to live independently a bit longer. If you got alzheimer, a long progressive mental illness, such assistant would be a boon.
Yep, I would agree with this, it could be very useful to a range of people. And I'm not saying it shouldn't be available, I'm just pointing out the possibilities of unintended consequences.
"it could lead to a future in which you can ask Cortana (or Siri or Alexa) where you left your shoes or if you're out of eggs."
This kind of super-invasive monitoring will be very attractive to police and divorce lawyers.
Janet: "Siri, whose bra is this?"
Siri: "Jennifer, my records show that the lacy black bra in your hand belongs to Alice Marie Simmons who was here at 3:52pm on January 9th while giving your husband a blowjob that lasted 7 minutes and 19 seconds. Afterwards they took a shower, using 28.5 gallons of water and 6.2 cubic feet of natural gas for heating. At 4:26pm they consumed the last two Hot Pockets and 16oz of milk. Would you like me to order some more Hot Pockets?"
Holi, I noticed your sig and it made me wonder...
"Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy."
So does that mean that gingers pass through unchanged?
They turned it green.
This is the forward-thinking kind of innovation that makes Microsoft so awesome.