How do other religions dispute historical claims?

[trenton]

Leo has been making a lot of posts recently about the problems with the historical claims of Christianity. This made me think of how many other religions made historical claims and more importantly, how they would argue against Christianity.

One example is Islam versus Christianity. Muslims argue that Christianity is wrong because the resurrection never happened. Firstly, the texts were written in Greek rather than Aramaic. Secondly, there are inconsistencies in the empty tomb story. Thirdly, the Holy Trinity is a later development and a distortion of what was originally a monotheistic message. Fourthly, Christians apply their historical arguments with double standards by claiming other religions fail certain evidentiary standards which they themselves fail. In fact the Quran claims that Jesus was never killed or crucified, leading to the theory that someone else was substituted for Jesus.

Surah An-Nisa (4:157): And [for] their saying, “Indeed, we have killed the Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary, the messenger of Allah.” And they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him; but [another] was made to resemble him to them. And indeed, those who differ over it are in doubt about it. They have no knowledge of it except the following of assumption. And they did not kill him, for certain.

The theory is that when the Romans were going to kill Jesus, one of his disciples played the role of a stunt double. This disciple disguised himself as Jesus to distract the Romans from the real Jesus while he escaped. The outcome is that the man who was crucified is claimed to be Jesus, but is in reality somebody else. Furthermore, it explains why there would have been witnesses to the supposed resurrection. After the supposed crucifixion of Jesus, Christians later found Jesus was still alive. Therefore, they believed that it was the result of a resurrection, but were mistaken. Some Muslims believe in swoon theory, but stunt double theory is now my new favorite instead.

Other religions have interesting cases of supernatural historical claims. One example is the Aztec religion, claiming that humanity was in the fifth age and sacrifices were an obligation to the divine to keep the universe functioning. In another example, Ancient Egypt treated its myths as real events such as the death of Osiris. In Rome the belief in their Gods was the result of a tradition in which the fact that their ancestors believed it meant that they should too without using the evidence for historical claims we would use today.

I am particularly interested in how religions argue against each other in terms of historical claims. Christianity leans most heavily on historical claims such as the resurrection story. 

[Leo Gura]

20 minutes ago, trenton said:

I am particularly interested in how religions argue against each other in terms of historical claims.

They don't. Religons are insular by design. Religion only works when you don't look elsewhere too much. Religion is like blinkers on a horse. As soon as you start asking serious historical and philosophical questions, all religon collapses like the house of cards that it is.

Edited 6 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Xonas Pitfall]

One of the funnier stories I’ve heard on the topic is about a Christian missionary in the 1970s named Daniel Everett. He went to live with an Indigenous tribe in the Amazon called the Pirahã, with the goal of learning their language and translating the Bible so he could convert them and "save" them to Christianity.

He went there to convert them and ended up losing his own faith.

The Pirahã culture places an enormous emphasis on things you can directly experience or verify.

So when Everett started telling them about Jesus, they asked him simple questions.

“Have you ever seen Jesus?” “Do you know anyone who has?” 

Um, did he look more like us, or did he look more like you?

I said, well, you know, some people said he looked more like me, and other people said he looked more like you.

Yeah, but you've seen him, so what does he look like?

I said, well, actually, I've never seen him, but your father saw him.

No, my dad never saw him either.

Well, who saw him?

I said, nobody. He lived a long time ago.

Well, if he lived a long time ago and nobody saw him, why are you telling us about him?

And it occurred to me that all the evidence that I had accumulated in Bible school, and all my prayers and all my activity as a Christian, didn't hold up to the evidentiary requirements of this group.

Why should they believe in someone nobody they knew had ever seen?

Over time, living with the Pirahã and thinking about their worldview played a major role in Everett questioning and eventually abandoning his Christian faith.

If you want to see 

From the video: 

Even greater detail, and realizing that new information is, again, as I've said, hard to come by.

If you sit in a room with people who look just like you, who are your gender, who are your age, your economic background, the chances of getting really new information are minimal, because everybody already agrees.

It's like a famous philosopher friend of mine said once, "I don't read anything because if they disagree with me, they're wrong, and if they agree with me, I already knew that."

Often, that's the way we think until somebody forces us to think differently.

So how can we possibly bring newness to our life?

Edited 5 hours ago by Xonas Pitfall

[Leo Gura]

@Xonas Pitfall Great story

[Jirh]

Islam and Christianity and Judaism are all one religion, in three different versions. Basically, Christianity is Judaism 2.0, and Islam is Judaism 3.0.

Judaism claims the Messiah will come near the end of times to fight the Antichrist and absolve humanity, but when Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, the Jews rejected him and killed him, accusing him of being the Antichrist. Islam tries to reconcile both narratives. To me, the whole Jesus never died thing is political, motivated by Muhammad's desire to appeal to Christian delusions.

The reason these different versions exist is because the text is generally ambiguous and can have many different interpretations. It's poetry, not science. Even each version/religion has many different sections/subversions. Almost like patches. So you could say Sufism is Judaism 3.0.5 

It's all just one big hallucination, in different flavours.

[Leo Gura]

Don't forget Mormonism: Judaism 4.0

Edited 4 hours ago by Leo Gura

[trenton]

@Xonas Pitfall that is a good argument. I used a version of this when I was a child. My position was agnostic because I wasn't there thousands of years ago to verify these claims. In this case the tribe argues similarly that if this is ancient history then I have no way to verify it, therefore I am in no position to say what it was like in ancient times. I don't know who Jesus was or what he was like.

[Xonas Pitfall]

24 minutes ago, trenton said:

@Xonas Pitfall that is a good argument. I used a version of this when I was a child. My position was agnostic because I wasn't there thousands of years ago to verify these claims. In this case the tribe argues similarly that if this is ancient history then I have no way to verify it, therefore I am in no position to say what it was like in ancient times. I don't know who Jesus was or what he was like.

Exactly. I think what I've personally encountered when discussing with some Muslims is that they believe their book is “pure and incorruptible” by humans because it's the “word of God.” So I'd ask them, "Even if I grant you that the Muslim God exists and that the book was written perfectly, how can you guarantee that human interpretation, with all its imperfections and biases, hasn't muddied its authority over the years?" They don't seem particularly willing to examine that question or think too deeply about it.

They are isolated within their own bubble and don't really look outside of it, because you know that if you question things too deeply, the whole thing might fall apart, so you simply don't want to look. There's too much survival, ego, and identity preservation at stake.

I remember there was a TikTok trend where people would find particularly heinous quotes from the Bible and ask Christians who were live-streaming themselves reading it to read them aloud. “Okay, but why are we reading this? What's the point of this?” They'd instantly become defensive and try to avoid engaging with it.

Edited 3 hours ago by Xonas Pitfall

[Leo Gura]

12 minutes ago, Xonas Pitfall said:

how can you guarantee that human interpretation, with all its imperfections and biases, hasn't muddied its authority over the years?

Lol

You might as well ask them to eat a pig.

[Xonas Pitfall]

Just now, Leo Gura said:

Lol

You might as well ask them to eat a pig.

The Pure and incorruptible Pig 😍

[Leo Gura]

Crispy delicious pig.

[Jirh]

Religious people don't question their interpretation because they don't think it's an interpretation in the first place. At stage Blue, people are absolutist and don't have enough awareness to understand context and interpretation. It's often structural and not always egotism or dogma. For most religious people, the map is the territory.