Scientology was created as a scam and the guy who made it pretty much admitted so.
Christianity seems to have started as some kind of legit spiritual movement.
The cultish behavior of the first could be compared to like....paying for condolences before the reformation or something, but that came later.
You will note that throughout this time Christians had little power and were actively persecuted by the Roman state. So while he was arguing in favour of the legitimacy of the church the church was rather than being a wealthy powerful political force a group facing violent persecution from the most powerful empire on earth
Paul was also very influential in promoting the Christian ideal of racial equality and was not one of the apostles
It's about how easy it is to evaluate the truthfulness a very new story vs. a very old one. Assume a divine being at least could exist and could turn water into wine. There's one story about turning water into wine from two years ago, and another story about turning water into wine from two thousand years ago. Isn't it easier to draw a conclusion about the truthfulness of the newer story?
Now say we conclude the new story is bullshit. We have living witnesses who say it never happened, there's no physical evidence despite the ease of preserving it, and we have all sorts of fresh information about the proponent of the story that suggests he's a con artist. Doesn't that mean the older story is more believable, if only because we're assuming it's at least possible, and we can't firmly conclude it's bullshit? We don't have living witnesses to question, it's extremely unlikely to have any sort of physical evidence after millennia, and the story's proponent is a legend, not a living guy we can go talk to get a read on.
If you start with the premise that it's almost certain no god exists, sure. A fantastical story in the ancient past is only technically more likely than one from yesterday.
But take seriously for a second the possibility that some god might exist. Say we have ironclad proof of some beings worth calling gods. They've appeared, they've done interviews, they've given divine revelation, they've performed godlike miracles. They've told us other gods exist, but they didn't give us a list or anything and we don't know what those other gods might be capable of. Wouldn't that significantly raise the probability that some fantastical ancient story is true? Take the story of Jesus and all the associated miracles and revelations. If we're seriously entertaining the possibility that godlike beings might exist, would it be unreasonable to say there was a 10% chance Jesus was a god? Maybe 15%?
We don't know if god exists. It only makes sense to say that an ancient water-into-wine story is virtually as unlikely as one from two years ago if you assume turning water into wine is impossible, i.e., that god does not exist.
I'm saying to assume that god might exist, because we don't know for sure either way. The hypothetical is to make it easier to assume this. In the hypothetical, we don't know if a god was responsible for the ancient story, but we at least know that's possible.
"It's exceedingly unlikely but technically possible" isn't really taking the possibility seriously. That's what I'm trying to get at -- if you do take the possibility seriously, then you can't as easily dismiss an ancient fantastical story as virtually impossible simply because fantastical stories are virtually impossible. And there's really no way to estimate how likely it is that god exists, anyway, at least not beyond "maybe, maybe not."
it is however possible to do a preponderance of the evidence and come to the conclusion that the evidence against any specific god of any specific religion existing is less likely than existing.
It's not, especially when you consider that there may be more than one god, multiple religions may be worshipping the same god, etc. The whole concept of divine beings is that they can do things we belive to be impossible.
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Scientology was created as a scam and the guy who made it pretty much admitted so. Christianity seems to have started as some kind of legit spiritual movement.
The cultish behavior of the first could be compared to like....paying for condolences before the reformation or something, but that came later.
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I disagree
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Oh yeah those early Christians and their sweet sweet persecution by the Romans. They got it made
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If you could be more specific that would be good
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You will note that throughout this time Christians had little power and were actively persecuted by the Roman state. So while he was arguing in favour of the legitimacy of the church the church was rather than being a wealthy powerful political force a group facing violent persecution from the most powerful empire on earth Paul was also very influential in promoting the Christian ideal of racial equality and was not one of the apostles
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What kind of scam artist tries to get someone long after his death rich. Where's the motive and also I would ask what resistance
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It's about how easy it is to evaluate the truthfulness a very new story vs. a very old one. Assume a divine being at least could exist and could turn water into wine. There's one story about turning water into wine from two years ago, and another story about turning water into wine from two thousand years ago. Isn't it easier to draw a conclusion about the truthfulness of the newer story?
Now say we conclude the new story is bullshit. We have living witnesses who say it never happened, there's no physical evidence despite the ease of preserving it, and we have all sorts of fresh information about the proponent of the story that suggests he's a con artist. Doesn't that mean the older story is more believable, if only because we're assuming it's at least possible, and we can't firmly conclude it's bullshit? We don't have living witnesses to question, it's extremely unlikely to have any sort of physical evidence after millennia, and the story's proponent is a legend, not a living guy we can go talk to get a read on.
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If you start with the premise that it's almost certain no god exists, sure. A fantastical story in the ancient past is only technically more likely than one from yesterday.
But take seriously for a second the possibility that some god might exist. Say we have ironclad proof of some beings worth calling gods. They've appeared, they've done interviews, they've given divine revelation, they've performed godlike miracles. They've told us other gods exist, but they didn't give us a list or anything and we don't know what those other gods might be capable of. Wouldn't that significantly raise the probability that some fantastical ancient story is true? Take the story of Jesus and all the associated miracles and revelations. If we're seriously entertaining the possibility that godlike beings might exist, would it be unreasonable to say there was a 10% chance Jesus was a god? Maybe 15%?
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We don't know if god exists. It only makes sense to say that an ancient water-into-wine story is virtually as unlikely as one from two years ago if you assume turning water into wine is impossible, i.e., that god does not exist.
I'm saying to assume that god might exist, because we don't know for sure either way. The hypothetical is to make it easier to assume this. In the hypothetical, we don't know if a god was responsible for the ancient story, but we at least know that's possible.
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"It's exceedingly unlikely but technically possible" isn't really taking the possibility seriously. That's what I'm trying to get at -- if you do take the possibility seriously, then you can't as easily dismiss an ancient fantastical story as virtually impossible simply because fantastical stories are virtually impossible. And there's really no way to estimate how likely it is that god exists, anyway, at least not beyond "maybe, maybe not."
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There's no way to estimate how likely it is that some divine being exists, and we certainly can't conclusively say that no such being exists.
"There are definitely no divine beings" is an ideological position, not a rational or empirical one.
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It's not, especially when you consider that there may be more than one god, multiple religions may be worshipping the same god, etc. The whole concept of divine beings is that they can do things we belive to be impossible.
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