If you lack evidence for Santa Claus, you lack evidence he danced a jig.

I recently encountered some speculation about Jesus getting married, living through the crucifixion (via swoon theory) few kids and other things. In response I made a point I've made several other times concerning this sort of in depth speculation.


There is no evidence that a historical Jesus existed at all. I've done enough research to know the sources are exceedingly poor in that regard so I know, by default, that this in depth speculation is a crock of shit.

Allow me an analogy. There is absolutely no good evidence for the existence of big foot. We have no good skeletons, no poop, no hairs, nothing to suggest that there even is a big foot. No matter what qualifications you have, if you are speculating on the mating habits of big foot, the social hierarchy, food preference, etc. ... you are talking out of your ass.

The fact that there is no good evidence that something even exists in the first place, precludes a good evidentiary standing on which significantly more in depth speculation might rest. If you lack good evidence for Santa Claus, you lack good evidence Santa Claus dancing a jig.

Romulus and Remus' cave found. Proves entire story is exactly accurate.

Yeah, it turns out the founders of Rome actually existed, were actually suckled by a wolf, were actually gods, the proof: Romulus and Remus' cave was found!

Some scholars, such as Andrea Carandini believe in the historicity of Romulus. Why others doubt the historicity of characters with amazing deeds attributed to them with absolutely no shred of evidence that it's true, escapes me. I always thought the assumption was that such an individual existed be it Robin Hood, Jesus Christ, or even King Arthur himself.

As Plutarch notes:

Suddenly the sky was darkened, a thick cloud of storm and rain settled on the earth; the common people fled in affright, and were dispersed; and in this whirlwind Romulus disappeared, his body being never found either living or dead. A foul suspicion presently attached to the patricians, and rumors were current among the people as if that they, weary of kingly government, and exasperated of late by the imperious deportment of Romulus toward them, had plotted against his life and made him away, so that they might assume the authority and government into their own hands. This suspicion they sought to turn aside by decreeing divine honors to Romulus, as to one not dead, but translated to a higher condition. And Proculus, a man of note, took oath that he saw Romulus caught up into heaven in his arms and vestments, and heard him, as he ascended, cry out that they should hereafter style him by the name of Quirinus.

Romulus ascended bodily into heaven as the God Quirinus, joining Jupiter and Mars as part of the trinity Archaic Triad.

All of this is absolutely true. We know because they found the cave.

Debunking Zeitgeist.

For those of you who don't have your pulse on the fingers of the crazies, you might not have heard of the steaming pile of crap that is Zeitgeist. A movie so horrific that even Wikipedia refuses to admit it exists. Oddly deciding that because everything it says was false it wasn't worth an article and was quickly expunged. Also, as JREF noted a lot of it was stolen from other sources. Basically it's the God Who Wasn't There, Loose Change, and crazy nutter stuff on the Fed Reserve.

The first part is actually interesting, probably because the God Who Wasn't There was actually interesting (though as noted before the added full interviews were far better). The second part was just inane and stupid... and the third part made me want to shoot myself.


For this reason I will address Part 1, which is almost exactly like addressing the God Who Wasn't There.The God Who Wasn't There Analysis is pretty good even for being written by an eeeevvvvilll Christian (his joke, not mine).

When I first read about such interesting links I looked them up... and you know what I found? Nada. For a really quick understanding of this, realize that the source for the original comparison are tenuous at best and rather extreme bullshit at worst.

First, points of interest: Joseph Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces is fantastic for exactly the reasons these links are not. They have fantastic backing and fit extremely well with the story outlines. The idea that the Jesus story fits perfectly within this outline whereas books like the, Autobiography of Charles Darwin, doesn't is certainly worthy of note. This is one of the reasons I am a mythicist myself (though a fairly agnostic one, I just don't see a good reason to believe in a historical figure).

But, pushing it to such odd extremes without evidence? For shame. To put this in quick perspective, keep the gospel story in mind and check out Encyclopedia Mythica's article on Horus. Notice any similarities? Neither do I.




Zeitgeist is uninteresting, plagiarized, crappy and false. That said, I'm still astounded that Wikipedia doesn't have a page on it.

Update:
In the time since this was written Wikipedia does now have a page on it. And rightly so.

C.S. Lewis' Trilemma

For some unknown reason many layfolks believe that C.S. Lewis is the end all of Christian Apologetics, despite having worse arguments than real Christian apologetics. One of his more famous arguments was the Trilemma: Lunatic, Liar, or Lord. Basically he held that Jesus was either a Lunatic, a Liar, or God. To rule out Lunatic and Liar he basically asked why are you saying such mean things, and then suddenly concluding that Jesus was God. I have no clue how anybody could be bamboozled by this nonsense, but it's apparently as popular as his "atheism is just too easy" argument.

Even skipping the clear problems with his arguments against the first two L-words. We are still left with a false 'trilemma'. We aren't able to conclude that the story is just fiction. It fits perfectly well into the fiction category. The story is written such that it falls perfectly well into the Hero's journey. It makes much more sense from a mythicist point of view than from one based in reality.

Either Hercules was a lunatic, liar, or son of Zeus. Clearly he wasn't lying or crazy. Therefore, he's the son of Zeus. Zeus exists.