Continued from the above post.
We need to study what arguments the ancient Greeks and Romans gave against christianism, where they made headway. We know why they failed: because the empire was taken over by the christian megalomaniac. And then the arguments of the "pagans" were destroyed by the villainous victor christianism.
Some of the following stuff I already posted once before on the history of christianism thread, but I'm including it here because the rest of the quoteblocks feel more connected with them included.
http://freetruth.50webs.org/Index.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The educated Romans disliked the religion. Some of them wrote books refuting Christianity, like the Epicurean Kelsos in his Alethes Logos, the last pagan emperor Julian in his Kata Christianon, and Porphyry's Against the Christians. The Church, unable to sufficiently counter their well-reasoned arguments (which it occasionally attempted), "won" the debate by destroying these works when it finally got into power. Even so, some scanty ancient literature against Christianity remains, pieced together from the unsuccessful attempts at responding by Christian Church fathers.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->IIRC, elsewhere I read more recently that there were indications that quite a number of books were written against the terrorist faith, but that most of them (including Julian's Kata Christianion) were destroyed by the anti-human church. That Kata Christianon existed is known because others mentioned it long ago by name.
First link goes to:
http://freetruth.50webs.org/A1.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->According to Roman sources, the Christians ...in Rome ...were considered a small, uneducated group of religious troublemakers from the lowest social classes, operating in the shadowy sides of society.
http://www.bandoli.no/tolerance.htm<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->"Religious troublemakers" and "operating in the shadowy sides of society" - things have not changed.
Same page - nobody liked christianism even back then:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->According to the last great Roman Emperor Julian (a pagan, unlike his predecessor), Christianity was the destroyer of the civilization it grew up in. According to historian Gibbon, the wise Stoic (pagan) Emperor-philosopher Marcus Aurelius was of the same opinion. The other Stoic emperors did not have a much better opinion:
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>All the Stoic Emperors detested Christianity as a mean superstition</b> and an anti-social philosophy. The Empire was laboring, and a sect which cut off its members from civic and imperial life deserved no indulgence.
-- The Story of Religious Controversy, by Joseph McCabe, historian and former Franciscan monk<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The pluralistic and tolerant Julian was proven right: he was assassinated. Since that time until today, the suspects have been Christians, dedicated as the Church was to re-establishing its stranglehold on Rome. Christian soldiers in the Roman army pierced Julian during a battle with the Persians. They had <b>already attempted the assassination before</b>.
The cherished Christian version of the murder was that Bishop Basil of Caesarea supposedly had a prophetic dream, wherein Julian "the Apostate"'s death was ordered by Jesus Christ himself and executed by St. Mercurius (the Roman God Mercury turned into a Christian Saint by the usual methods). Of course, the murder "miraculously" took place as foretold in Bishop Basil's dream. In reality this is merely the way the early Church denoted the covert assassination - with a "Persian spear" - of the pagan Emperor. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->The bold bit above links to:
http://freetruth.50webs.org/B3b.htm#JulianThreatened
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Rome's last pagan Emperor, Julian, who reigned after Constantius II from 361 CE:
There was a striking contrast between the reign of [Christian Emperor] Constantius and that of his pagan successor. Julian decreed universal tolerance. No Christian was visited with punishment on account of his religion. The only means he employed to combat the growing superstition was to write against it, and throughout his short but beneficent reign he afforded convincing proof of the superiority of his Paganism to the Christianity of his predecessors. His temper and his philosophy were so humane that he pardoned <b>a band of Christian soldiers who conspired to assassinate him</b>, and he forgave the people of Antioch for an insult such as the pious Theodosius avenged at Thessalonica by a wholesale massacre.
-- Crimes of Christianity, by G W Foote and J M Wheeler
Link<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://freetruth.50webs.org/A1.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Celsus and his True Word</b>
The Epicurean Kelsos (Celsus) of the 2nd century CE wrote the Alethes Logos ("True Word"). It was a criticism of Christianity wherein Celsus explained that he wrote it not just to refute the "false word" of Christianity but also to explain why the religion had to be suppressed. Roman intellectuals were much impressed by the work, such that it greatly impeded Christianity's spread among the educated classes. So much so in fact, that only the greatest intellectual in Christianity could attempt to reply to it. Only 80 years later could such a man be found among the Christian ranks: Origen of Alexandria.
And yet, the Church later on considered Origen himself to be a heretic. Of course, Celsus did not have a chance to make a rebuttal of his own, since Origen's attempts to refute his criticism took place long after he had died.
Christian emperors had done away with all other writings of Celsus, and even Alethes Logos only managed to survive in pieces: those parts of it that were used by Origen in his attempted refutation titled Contra Celsus.
In the 2nd century, Celsus refuted Christianity's claims with arguments that are still employed today and remain unsatisfactorily answered.
See the book: On the True Doctrine: A Discourse Against the Christians by Celsus. Celsus' True Word has been pieced together and translated.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Turns out that Celsus in the 2nd century seriously doubted alleged jeebus' existence and his ever-changing "life-story" too:
http://freetruth.50webs.org/B2a.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Celsus (Epicurean, 2nd Century A.D., writes in his True Word, a critique of Christianity):
"I could continue along these lines, suggesting a good deal about the affairs of Jesus' life that does not appear in your own records. Indeed, what I know to be the case and what the disciples tell are two very different stories... [for example] the nonsensical idea that Jesus foresaw everything that was to happen to him (an obvious attempt to conceal the humiliating facts)."
"The men who fabricated this geneaology [of Jesus] were insistent on the point that Jesus was descended from the first man and from the king of the Jews [David]. The poor carpenter's wife seems not to have known she had such a distinguished bunch of ancestors."
"What an absurdity! Clearly the christians have used the myths of Danae and the Melanippe, or of the Auge and the Antiope in fabricating the story of Jesus' virgin birth."
"After all, the old myths of the greeks that attribute a divine birth to Perseus, Amphion, Aeacus and Minos are equally good evidence of their wondrous works on behalf of mankind- and are certainly no less lacking in plausibility than the stories of your followers."
Link<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://freetruth.50webs.org/B2b.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->To say nothing of the hundred and fifty thousand various readings of the Greek Testament, it is an undisputed fact that passages have been knowingly interpolated in the canonical Gospels. The famous Trinitarian text in the first Epistle of St. John (5:7) has been almost universally recognised as a forgery since the days of Porson; and the public is now informed in the margin of our Revised Bible that the second half of the last chapter of Mark, from the ninth to the twentieth verses, does not exist in the oldest manuscripts, while some manuscripts give a different ending altogether. The author of the second Epistle to the Thessalonians appears to indicate that shameless forgeries were already rife, and expresses apprehension lest his own name should be attached to such frauds (2:2; 3:17). <b>Other instances might be given, but these will suffice to elucidate the complaint of Celsus, in the second century, that the Christians were perpetually correcting and altering their Gospels. </b>
-- Crimes of Christianity, by G W Foote and J M Wheeler<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
We need to study what arguments the ancient Greeks and Romans gave against christianism, where they made headway. We know why they failed: because the empire was taken over by the christian megalomaniac. And then the arguments of the "pagans" were destroyed by the villainous victor christianism.
Some of the following stuff I already posted once before on the history of christianism thread, but I'm including it here because the rest of the quoteblocks feel more connected with them included.
http://freetruth.50webs.org/Index.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The educated Romans disliked the religion. Some of them wrote books refuting Christianity, like the Epicurean Kelsos in his Alethes Logos, the last pagan emperor Julian in his Kata Christianon, and Porphyry's Against the Christians. The Church, unable to sufficiently counter their well-reasoned arguments (which it occasionally attempted), "won" the debate by destroying these works when it finally got into power. Even so, some scanty ancient literature against Christianity remains, pieced together from the unsuccessful attempts at responding by Christian Church fathers.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->IIRC, elsewhere I read more recently that there were indications that quite a number of books were written against the terrorist faith, but that most of them (including Julian's Kata Christianion) were destroyed by the anti-human church. That Kata Christianon existed is known because others mentioned it long ago by name.
First link goes to:
http://freetruth.50webs.org/A1.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->According to Roman sources, the Christians ...in Rome ...were considered a small, uneducated group of religious troublemakers from the lowest social classes, operating in the shadowy sides of society.
http://www.bandoli.no/tolerance.htm<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->"Religious troublemakers" and "operating in the shadowy sides of society" - things have not changed.
Same page - nobody liked christianism even back then:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->According to the last great Roman Emperor Julian (a pagan, unlike his predecessor), Christianity was the destroyer of the civilization it grew up in. According to historian Gibbon, the wise Stoic (pagan) Emperor-philosopher Marcus Aurelius was of the same opinion. The other Stoic emperors did not have a much better opinion:
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>All the Stoic Emperors detested Christianity as a mean superstition</b> and an anti-social philosophy. The Empire was laboring, and a sect which cut off its members from civic and imperial life deserved no indulgence.
-- The Story of Religious Controversy, by Joseph McCabe, historian and former Franciscan monk<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The pluralistic and tolerant Julian was proven right: he was assassinated. Since that time until today, the suspects have been Christians, dedicated as the Church was to re-establishing its stranglehold on Rome. Christian soldiers in the Roman army pierced Julian during a battle with the Persians. They had <b>already attempted the assassination before</b>.
The cherished Christian version of the murder was that Bishop Basil of Caesarea supposedly had a prophetic dream, wherein Julian "the Apostate"'s death was ordered by Jesus Christ himself and executed by St. Mercurius (the Roman God Mercury turned into a Christian Saint by the usual methods). Of course, the murder "miraculously" took place as foretold in Bishop Basil's dream. In reality this is merely the way the early Church denoted the covert assassination - with a "Persian spear" - of the pagan Emperor. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->The bold bit above links to:
http://freetruth.50webs.org/B3b.htm#JulianThreatened
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Rome's last pagan Emperor, Julian, who reigned after Constantius II from 361 CE:
There was a striking contrast between the reign of [Christian Emperor] Constantius and that of his pagan successor. Julian decreed universal tolerance. No Christian was visited with punishment on account of his religion. The only means he employed to combat the growing superstition was to write against it, and throughout his short but beneficent reign he afforded convincing proof of the superiority of his Paganism to the Christianity of his predecessors. His temper and his philosophy were so humane that he pardoned <b>a band of Christian soldiers who conspired to assassinate him</b>, and he forgave the people of Antioch for an insult such as the pious Theodosius avenged at Thessalonica by a wholesale massacre.
-- Crimes of Christianity, by G W Foote and J M Wheeler
Link<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://freetruth.50webs.org/A1.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Celsus and his True Word</b>
The Epicurean Kelsos (Celsus) of the 2nd century CE wrote the Alethes Logos ("True Word"). It was a criticism of Christianity wherein Celsus explained that he wrote it not just to refute the "false word" of Christianity but also to explain why the religion had to be suppressed. Roman intellectuals were much impressed by the work, such that it greatly impeded Christianity's spread among the educated classes. So much so in fact, that only the greatest intellectual in Christianity could attempt to reply to it. Only 80 years later could such a man be found among the Christian ranks: Origen of Alexandria.
And yet, the Church later on considered Origen himself to be a heretic. Of course, Celsus did not have a chance to make a rebuttal of his own, since Origen's attempts to refute his criticism took place long after he had died.
Christian emperors had done away with all other writings of Celsus, and even Alethes Logos only managed to survive in pieces: those parts of it that were used by Origen in his attempted refutation titled Contra Celsus.
In the 2nd century, Celsus refuted Christianity's claims with arguments that are still employed today and remain unsatisfactorily answered.
See the book: On the True Doctrine: A Discourse Against the Christians by Celsus. Celsus' True Word has been pieced together and translated.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Turns out that Celsus in the 2nd century seriously doubted alleged jeebus' existence and his ever-changing "life-story" too:
http://freetruth.50webs.org/B2a.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Celsus (Epicurean, 2nd Century A.D., writes in his True Word, a critique of Christianity):
"I could continue along these lines, suggesting a good deal about the affairs of Jesus' life that does not appear in your own records. Indeed, what I know to be the case and what the disciples tell are two very different stories... [for example] the nonsensical idea that Jesus foresaw everything that was to happen to him (an obvious attempt to conceal the humiliating facts)."
"The men who fabricated this geneaology [of Jesus] were insistent on the point that Jesus was descended from the first man and from the king of the Jews [David]. The poor carpenter's wife seems not to have known she had such a distinguished bunch of ancestors."
"What an absurdity! Clearly the christians have used the myths of Danae and the Melanippe, or of the Auge and the Antiope in fabricating the story of Jesus' virgin birth."
"After all, the old myths of the greeks that attribute a divine birth to Perseus, Amphion, Aeacus and Minos are equally good evidence of their wondrous works on behalf of mankind- and are certainly no less lacking in plausibility than the stories of your followers."
Link<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://freetruth.50webs.org/B2b.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->To say nothing of the hundred and fifty thousand various readings of the Greek Testament, it is an undisputed fact that passages have been knowingly interpolated in the canonical Gospels. The famous Trinitarian text in the first Epistle of St. John (5:7) has been almost universally recognised as a forgery since the days of Porson; and the public is now informed in the margin of our Revised Bible that the second half of the last chapter of Mark, from the ninth to the twentieth verses, does not exist in the oldest manuscripts, while some manuscripts give a different ending altogether. The author of the second Epistle to the Thessalonians appears to indicate that shameless forgeries were already rife, and expresses apprehension lest his own name should be attached to such frauds (2:2; 3:17). <b>Other instances might be given, but these will suffice to elucidate the complaint of Celsus, in the second century, that the Christians were perpetually correcting and altering their Gospels. </b>
-- Crimes of Christianity, by G W Foote and J M Wheeler<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->