Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
And it gets better. This is the link to the second part of Tamas Pataki’s address: http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2010/08/13/2981969.htm
I was moved by humanity expressed in Pataki’s 2007 book, and it is refreshing to find this expounded once again from a secular humanist viewpoint. Continue reading “Would the world really be better without religion?”
There is a wonderful article by Tamas Pataki at http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2010/08/10/2979163.htm
Tamas Pataki is honorary senior fellow at the University of Melbourne and honorary fellow of Deakin University. His most recent book is Against Religion (Scribe, 2007). This is the first part of an edited version of the address he delivered at the 2010 Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne, on 12 April 2010.
I have discussed his book Against Religion a few times on this blog — collated in the Pataki archive.
The whole article should be read for his nuanced views on atheism, religion and humanism.
I’ve tried to bottle a few of the passages that struck a chord with me below, but more for my own record. Read the full article at the above link. Continue reading “Giving atheism a bad name (On Atheism, Religion, Humanism)”
The Real Jesus Challenge
“I think it is historically virtually certain that Jesus existed.”—Bart D. Ehrman
See René Salm’s Reply to Bart Erhman on Nazareth and The Real Jesus Challenge Award. This is an excerpt from the American Freethought podcast with Bart Ehrman, hosted by John C. Snider. Professor Ehrman’s remarks have led to the institution of the Real Jesus Challenge (also known as the 2011 Historicist Prize) sponsored by the Mythicists’ Forum.
On the same page I found these interesting remarks on René Salm’s book on the archaeology of Nazareth — The Myth of Nazareth:
Prof. Thomas Thompson…
…René Salm’s The Myth of Nazareth has been waiting to be written for twenty years now and I am glad to see that someone has finally taken up the challenge.…—Thomas L. Thompson PhD, University of Copenhagen (Emeritus). Author, The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel; The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David, etc. Continue reading “The Real Jesus Challenge, Bart Erhman, and Nazareth”
From The 2010 Mythicist Prize results on René Salm’s Mythicist Prize page.
Ten Beautiful Lies About Jesus by David Fitzgerald.
“Fitzgerald’s is possibly the best ‘capsule summary’ of the mythicist case I’ve ever encountered …within an interesting and accessible approach.”
—Earl Doherty
Fitzgerald’s conclusion:
If Jesus had been a real individual we have a thorny paradox. Either Jesus was a remarkable individual who did and said amazing things — and no one outside his cult noticed him for the rest of the century; or he didn’t — and yet right after his death tiny house communities appear scattered scattered across the empire that cannot agree about the most basic facts of his life. The truth is inescapable: there simply could never have been a historical Jesus.
The other is:
Peter McKenna (Liverpool, England), Honorable Mention: Jesus Nazoraios: hidden truths revealed? Continue reading “Ten Beautiful Lies About Jesus – and another 2010 Mythicist Prize Result”