How progressive that would have been. What a message to the patriarchy!

Instead, women are given 2nd-class roles from the beginning. No wonder the RCC is the way it is.

How progressive that would have been. What a message to the patriarchy!

Instead, women are given 2nd-class roles from the beginning. No wonder the RCC is the way it is.

Inspiration?

Interesting.

The male disciples are described. Why is that, do you suppose?

This is bullshit. You are not arguing in good faith. You never do.

But, the culture from which Christianity arose was a patriarchy. The culture that spread Christianity, namely the Romans, was also a patriarchy. Since women as disciples are not mentioned, I would imagine there were none, frankly, given the culture where Jesus was supposed to have lived.

But, I cannot answer your question, because we have the scriptures as they are. I cannot re-edit them, since the original texts are no longer available. They are not my scriptures, in any case. I have no scriptures. I am an atheist.

You cannot answer your own question, either.

I know it's really fucking hard to believe, but maybe—just maybe—the Gospels are full of sexist shit because they were written by a bunch of fucking iron age sexists.

Imagining that it has REAL origins of being the perfect religion, and that everything wrong with it is the work of flawed human beings.

Such a depressing and anti-human view. Rather than acknowledge humans have improved themselves and his religion over time, he chooses instead to insist we needed a god to provide us with ideal morality (which naturally matches his) that we are slowly figuring out, despite any evidence to support it.

But you see, that's where FAITH comes in. Neat, huh?

Disciples = discipuli (students)

And the one most closely matched in intellect with Jesus. Granted it’s all myth and legend, but if the Dead Sea gospels are myth and legend, so are the 4 Gospels. Some human being created all of these characters, and one of those characters was an intelligent and courageous woman who didn’t hide away from the Romans.

It's kind of hard to reconcile one story burned as heretical with the others that require women to STFU and accept subservience. One can only excuse so much as "metaphor".

From the article:

Did you have a point?

We were not discussing atheism of any sort.

Strange that you'd derail your own threat in your crusade. But then again, not really. Your hatred is just that strong.

One of your favorites.

I'm sorry the truth hurts.

You'll attack, insult, engage in blatantly hypocritical behavior, all to demonstrate your vicious hatred.

Isn't your religion supposed to make you a better person than this?

Why do you behave like this?

Followed by a parade of unsupported accusations.

What is the popular term for that?

I am done with you. You and your religion are very toxic.

Expected.

I stopped following Sam Harris entirely after that. I don't follow Dawkins. Or Shermer. Or Dunning. Or Thunderf00t. Unsubbed. Gone. Finito. Done. They haven't received one red cent from me in fucking years.

Now, just out of curiosity, how often do you throw money in the collection plate?

still behaving in the same way.

And, unlike some other people, I can honestly say I'm not enabling or making excuses for them.

And, unlike religion, there's nothing inherent to atheism that suggests I should.

Atheism has no leaders. Atheists are individuals. Atheism has no doctrines. Are there misogynistic atheists? No doubt, but none of those have anything to do with me or my atheism.

Are you like fundamentalist Christians? Pat Robertson? No? Same thing, exactly.

I have a bone to pick with her/him.

BTW, you haven't been tithing. Lemme send you to my patreon page.

However, I will welcome any generosity from you, and will rebate 10% of anything you send to me.

What's 10% of a stick of gum, a straightened paperclip, and half a rubber band?

Where is your wealth? Where are all the artworks, and tall buildings?

And Lordquentin paid me in comic books. And not comic books that are worth a lot. Stuff like Jack Chick's 1990's Deadpool run.

Look, we're having a little trouble getting this thing off the ground, OK.

As for Trotsky's checks, I have papered an entire wall with those...

They've never seen a rubber with such bouncing resilience.

Oh wait, no they weren't. That comes from the one that actually has misogynistic doctrine.

Like they aren't socialized into implicit social norms heavily influenced by the religious beliefs of the majority.

A religionist doing something bad because their religion instructed or enabled them is no different than an atheist doing something bad why? Those dots never seem to get connected.

we throw that term around a lot, but in this circumstance it's an out of the blue "Well, your group does this too" is the exact, original context it was coined for. First sentence on Wikipedia "Whataboutism (also known as whataboutery) is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument"

They could put your exchange as a perfect example.

Truly wish.

She also matched Jesus in intellect. The apostles all had their strengths, but Magdalene had courage, intelligence and loyalty.

Mary Magdalene was in many ways stronger than Peter.

But the needs of a patriarchal society prevailed.

The men were hiding away once Jesus was arrested. Granted, it is possible that women were given a pass by the Romans and were overlooked as any actual threat to the peace (and therefore, somewhat safer for them to stay with him), but that does not change the fact that Mary, a non-relative, stood by him in a public manner. Peter’s denial of knowing Jesus goes down in history as ultimately a redemptive story, but it started with his cowardice. Mary never denied knowing him. Mary declared to the world that he had risen from the dead. THIS was a statement which would endanger her in the Roman colony. Jesus was crucified to put down a Jewish rebellion ... stories like this would endanger any Jesus follower.

Mary went on to preach the gospel, again, a courageous act by man or woman under the thumb of Roman rule.

If you believe the gospel of Mary Magdalene (I do)(as much as the others, anyway), Jesus and Mary had intellectual equality. Peter May have been the rock, but Mary was the brain.

There’s a reason I took her name for DU. her intelligence and bravery are inspiring. She, like Peter, Thomas, Paul, had her own followers in the early church.

the crucifixion, the resurrection, or anything else. Everything was written after everyone who was supposed to have been with him was dead. Fragments of second and third-hand accounts by people who never knew the man, assuming that there was a man to know.

You mention the Gospel of Mary Magdalene. It is yet another example of something written about her, not by her. We have only a fragment of it, written a few hundred years after the fact. Why would anyone take that as a true account?

By then, it had all become a story, not an accurate account. The Gospel of Mary Magdalene is a fragmentary account written long after she had died. It was not written by someone who knew her or who was there. There's no evidence of that at all.

I understand that you like the account and perhaps even believe it, but that's not evidence of its authenticity or importance.

If there ever were contemporaneous accounts of such events, they are long lost, leaving behind only storytelling. Who knows what is accurate and what is just a good story that supports belief?

of the Gospels?

Would they not have been treated as sacred treasures and preserved? So where are they? Multiple generations pass before the first gospel texts appear.

Show me one contemporaneous piece of writing about Jesus. Just one. Find that, and you will be famous for centuries.

Those contemporaneous accounts?

You can't prove there is no god.

You can't prove the gospels weren't talking about genuine events.

Nor can you prove the anonymous authors of the gospels weren't actually referencing real documents of which there is zero evidence for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

Once again...

She’s generally seen as a Gnostic. My understanding ends there.

Perhaps you can point me toward resources that demonstrate your claim.

Either it is a favorable account of Mary written by a devoted follower who wished to elevate her status with Jesus (quite possible)(but shows she did have a strong and devoted following); or it is completely made up. For what purpose? To challenge the patriarchy? Why would mary’s Followers claim that she was the most loved by Jesus? Maybe she was nothing more than a cult leader. Maybe all of the apostles were nothing more than cult leaders. It is written by all of them, pro-Mary and anti-Mary followers, that Mary remained close to jesus’s Mother. Obviously considered “family.” Her account of the life of Jesus and what his teachings meant, were worth consideration.

in the Canon. You might like the "Gospel of Mary Magdalene" but, then, you like her well enough to use her name as your screen name. That's nice, but not convincing.

Who wrote that fragmentary unrecognized Gospel? Mary, herself? Really? Clearly not. None of the other Gospels were written by the person whose name appears in their title. What evidence is there for the one you're talking about being written by Mary the Magdalene? Besides, it is only a fragment of what it is supposed to be. Very thin evidence of anything.

It's not so simple, really. You like it. That's nice.

I’m a mathesian Christian (Sermon on the Mount is my religion)(that’s why I’m a Democrat) but I don’t believe divinity of Christ so that disqualified me as a real Christian. I consider the gospel of Mary and gospel of Thomas as on par with the others. None is an eyewitness account. None probably written by an actual apostle. One gospel written by one apostle’s followers has no more weight than another gospel written by another apostle’s followers. Matthew, though, gets to the meat of it. I would not pay attention to any of it without the Sermon on the Mount.

My avatar is half serious, half whimsical. In straitening out my password and log in information (which kept me off DU for years because I could not remember or fix my password) I tried using some version of my own name which popped up as close to Mary Magdalene but with misspellings. I kept it and won’t risk changing it again.

I am loyal to Mary Magdalene because of the insult by the church against her position as an apostle but my feminism doesn’t make me a devotee. I’m a mathesian, not a gnostic, not into mysticism. My Christian beliefs are those of Marcus Borg ... Jesus never said he was god.

You asked for none of the above but I’m agnostic not gnostic when it comes to Mary. The bottom line ... SOME of her followers thought she was the one with the true vision. Similar to John’s followers. I’m not with John. Too Greek, too mystical.

Romans, for Romans. It's no wonder that the Roman, Paul, plays such a large role in it. Once the official canon was adopted, that fixed Christianity into a single mold, based on a politically motivated editing of whatever documents actually existed and suited the model that was preferred.

Had it not been for the Roman church, Christianity would probably have withered and died early on. That it did not is a testament to the genius of some old Romans, who needed a modernized religion that was simpler than the old polytheistic one.

Of course, the Biblical Canon is not a modern document at all. It's almost 1700-1800 years old. It's pre-medieval and basically has not changed at all. It is yet another ancient scripture that has long outlived its time. Its iron-age message has rusted, corroded, and no longer has the strength it once did.

The only thing keeping it alive is tradition. In the 21st century, it is beginning to fade away more quickly. It lost its relevance long ago, but religions die very slowly, due to tradition.

Anyhow, talking about things that happened in the time of Jesus is pretty much foolishness. We have no idea. We have no real concept of life as it was at that time. We just don't know very much about those times, really, on a personal level. But, we're still human, and still have questions that are difficult to answer. Religion has always appealed to those who demand answers to unanswerable questions. So, religion has survived. So far. How much longer? I don't know.

Google Council of Nicea.

All of the Bishops were not Romans.

"Constantine had invited all 1,800 bishops of the Christian church within the Roman Empire"

"Delegates came from every region of the Roman Empire, including Britain."

Wiki

Which of these people were not Romans?

The New Testament is a Roman compilation and edit. Give us a break.

There is no contemporaneous account of any of this. No one is to be believed more than any other.

I’m still intrigued by the characters, much like fiction. I end up defending my favorite characters against other people’s characters and I feel sometimes I’m in a highly charged book club. I forget sometime that this is literal truth to some people.

I remember laughing at a line in one of the gospels saying something like “Who is this guy Jesus? Nothing good ever came out of ____ (Jesus’s home town)” and the rural Baptist preacher at the church I was visiting kinda started. It was an obvious ironic line in the Bible ... the writer was clearly enjoying himself but we were not supposed to laugh. The Bible was real and not literature. I often forget. I think this is why many of my atheist friends hate all discussion of the Bible and they wish we would all shut up. Too many people killed because of a book taken way too seriously.

you ignore what might be contemporaneous accounts.

And that way, you can claim that there are no contemporaneous accounts.

Interesting how one can arbitrarily decide to exclude information that might refute a position.

Not a sign so far of anything about Jesus by any name. I've seen the lists of documents.I

Do you suppose people have not been searching for something having to do with Jesus?

How long will you wait for a contemporaneous account?

It was discovered in 1893, and has nothing to do with the Dead Sea scrolls. The copy discovered is part of the Berlin Codex is from the 5th century. Two other fragments have been discovered since then.

It also isn’t clear which Mary is being referred to in the text, Magdalene is a strong contender.

He just knows what's good for women, I guess.