this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2024

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YUP (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 9 months ago by lemmytellyousomething@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/atheism@lemmy.world

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[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 66 points 9 months ago (2 children)

The originally calculated timeframe was incorrect, so rather than change what year it is, religious scholars just say Jesus, if he existed at all, was born in 6-4 B.C.E.

The Bible puts Jesus's birth before the death of Herod the Great, which happened shortly after a Lunar eclipse - we now know that happened in March, 4 B.C.E.

However, it's also possible Jesus was born as far back as 6 B.C.E., what with Herod ordering the killing of all male babies under 2 years of age, and it is written that effort was made to hide Jesus from this.

Of course, it's all likely bs anyway, but there is a somewhat logical reason for the whole Jesus's birth not lining up with year 0 thing.

[–] Akasazh@feddit.nl 10 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Great comment. I only wonder how you were going to profit from this, o nagus

[–] UtMan1988@lemmy.world 10 points 9 months ago

His post was sponsored by NordVPN

[–] wise_pancake@lemmy.ca 5 points 9 months ago

Don't question the nagus, surely someone as esteemed as his lobeliness knows what they're doing. A wise man can smell profit in the wind.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

Selling Jesus merch, duh. Have you seen some of the crap those people buy? Hopefully they live in The Bible Belt, and not Las Vegas, which is where I would expect to run into Ferengi.

[–] AstridWipenaugh@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

None of the new testament was written down until at least 200 as far as we know. It was all oral history until that point. So best case those first authors got stories originally witnessed by their great great great great grandparents. But of course there were no mistellings or misrememberings of the story along the way; god wouldn't let that happen.

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 49 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yes, the calendar was made by monks many centuries later that were doing the best they could to estimate when Jesus was born.

This is disputed by exactly no one.

Also, the monks were shooting for 1 AD to be the year of the birth of Jesus.

[–] Crashumbc@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yes, Everything about "Jesus" was made up by monks many centuries later...

FTFY

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 7 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Well that's may be your belief but the consensus among historians is that there was a man called Jesus of Nazareth that existed.

But many religions create their own alternate versions of history, so I wouldn't expect atheism to be any different. But it's important to recognize it as a belief and understand your belief is inconsistent with the consensus of experts in the relevant field.

[–] cranakis@reddthat.com 12 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Atheism is as much a religion as not playing any sports is a sport.

[–] hydrospanner@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Eh, based on how many people put so much effort into treating their lack of interest in sports as a personality trait, and in demonstrating how they don't care about sports even more than other people who don't care about sports...the analogy seems...at least amusing if not entirely accurate.

[–] cranakis@reddthat.com 8 points 9 months ago

In my experience "atheism is a religion" is only an argument religious ppl make when they have no real argument otherwise. It's semantics and frankly, who cares? Call it a religion if you like. Idgaf.

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca -4 points 9 months ago (3 children)

"I hate the NY Yankees, but I'm not a sports fan" said no one ever.

[–] cranakis@reddthat.com 6 points 9 months ago

How about "I used to be a fan but the Yankee's fucking ruined the entire sport for me?"

[–] cheesorist@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

I hate all teams equally.

[–] Rediphile@lemmy.ca 1 points 9 months ago

"I hate God" said no atheist ever.

[–] Rediphile@lemmy.ca 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You say it like it matters if the experts said otherwise. Like if the consensus was there never was a Jesus of Nazareth, would you no longer have that oh so important 'faith'?

[–] Sadbutdru@sopuli.xyz 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

What makes you think SpaceCowboy has a religious faith? Nothing they've said in this comment gave me that signal. Fwiw I am not religious, but I know religious people who I respect, and who are intelligent, rational people, knowledgeable about and interested in science and history etc. I don't think having 'faith' automatically makes a person stupid or contemptible, and I don't think being an atheist automatically means you're more rational or intelligent than someone else

[–] Rediphile@lemmy.ca 5 points 9 months ago

Their reference to atheism as a religion (it isn't) which 'creates its own history' tipped me off.

And their lack of reply to my simple question really says it all. A non-religious could simply reply 'no, obviously I would not believe in him if the experts consensus was they did not exist'. SpaceCowboy however cannot state this, as my suspicion is the expert consensus has no impact on their beliefs whatsoever. Which I was I asked ... why even talk about the expert consensus at all?

Also this comment chain further reinforces my view. Referring to atheists as 'they' implies SpaceCowboy is not an atheist.

And I'd argue that you actually don't know any truly 'rational' people who are also religious as those concepts are fundamentally at odds with each other. There is no rational basis for the supernatural. I'm sure they are generally nice, well-meaning, intelligent and knowledgeable people though, most religious people I know are too. And yes I also know asshole atheists too, lots of them. But I don't see what that has to do with what I stated/asked. I made no assessment on religious or non-religious people being good or bad, smart or stupid. I made no claim that atheists are magically more rational or intelligent than someone else, although on average they may be but I would have to review the data before jumping to any conclusions. I didn't attack SpaceCowboy in any way, I just asked a simple question.

[–] Crashumbc@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

There were hundreds of men named Jesus, it was a popular name during that time. Also, prophets were everywhere. So it stands to reason there was probably a prophet named Jesus during that time period. The "Jesus" talked about in the Bible? Lol nah.

[–] Pipoca@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

What do you think is more likely: disciples telling taller and taller tales after their master died that spun out into the Bible after a while, or a mythological preacher being invented a few decades after his death?

From what I understand, the consensus view of historians is that Moses and the exodus is probably wholly legendary - there's no archeological evidence of the exodus and the Torah was written 500+ years after the events supposedly happened.

By contrast, the earliest sources for Jesus are from within a century of his death. It's way more likely that we have a mythologized story of a real preacher named Jesus than that we have a wholly legendary story.

[–] Crashumbc@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

First, there is no consensus, a fairly small group of mostly religious historians believe that.

Second I gave you, by far, the most likely answer.

[–] RedditWanderer@lemmy.world 24 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

If you're wondering, this is because the dates were not set until several hundred years after Jesus died, and they fucked up. They calculated a date and set that as the first year (there is no 0 between 1 BC and 1 AD).

Then later they counted again, finding they were off by 4-6 years and they miscalculated, and instead of changing the entire calendar for the whole world, they bumped Jesus' birthdate instead.

[–] Drunemeton@lemmy.world 13 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Can we please just switch to “Human Era” dating?

https://youtu.be/czgOWmtGVGs

[–] IndiBrony@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Kurzgesagt?

Yep. Kurzgesagt!

I welcome you, fellow human, to the year 12,024 👍

[–] Drunemeton@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago

AKA “Holocene calendar”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_calendar

[–] hglman@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Trees, am I a joke to you? I do not disagree with having a better year 0, but this video is making a lot of assumptions.

[–] Drunemeton@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Such as…?

[–] hglman@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

What represents us all, what makes humans special, that we are the only species to colonize the earth.

[+] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca -26 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Christians changed the calendar because that's what religious people do. There's a Buddhist calendar too, ya know?

So atheists want to change the Calendar because... ?

Yeah atheism is a religion. Y'all are just in denial about it.

[–] NoSpotOfGround@lemmy.world 17 points 9 months ago (1 children)

What do you believe atheism worships?

[+] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca -11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Depends on the sect.

[–] NoSpotOfGround@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Go on then, pick any three sects. Or just any.

[+] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca -15 points 9 months ago

Well the most common sect is the people that have been harmed by a religion. Usually childhood trauma. They were raised in religion and want a similar group to express their anger over the trauma they experienced. They have extreme hatred for their former religion but usually tolerance and even respect for religions besides the one they were hurt by. You can usually spot this sect because they have an encyclopedic knowledge of scriptures and spend a lot of time pointing out paradoxes in them. These people's thoughts are dominated by God more than most religious people.

Another sect is the science vs. religion sect. They see religion as an adversary to science because they misunderstand both religion and science. They confuse theory with fact, they think God can't co-exist with evolution, etc. Since they consider science to be a belief system they tend to be bad scientists. Science requires skepticism and curiosity which contradicts their dogmatic view of science. These people worship Richard Dawkins. Sometimes Charles Darwin, even though Darwin believed in God. But the fact that Jesus was a Jew doesn't prevent Christians from hating Jews, religion is just weird like that.

Another sect is the Communist sect. They believe in an apocalyptic end times as Karl Marx prophesied. This is the most fundamentalist sect, most likely to commit violence. In fact more deaths have been caused by this one sect of atheism than by all other religions combined. Most atheists don't consider it to be a sect of atheism because it's ideology. Ideology is a set of morals and beliefs on how a society should be structured, nothing at all like a religion, right? They worship the man with the big beard that gave them their prophecy.

But all atheists share a common belief that their religious bigotry is different from the bigotry of other religions because "atheism is not a religion." The think of themselves as free-thinkers that figured out things about religion that other people are to dumb to understand. But fail to apply the same criticism to their own beliefs because they think aren't beliefs is "reality." Don't understand that's how every religion works. Atheist groups are generally about expressing ignorant hatred towards other religions.

[–] Pegajace@lemmy.world 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Christians changed the calendar because that's what religious people do

That’s a reductionist take. They wanted to inject their religion into culture and constantly remind everyone about it. It certainly does not define what is or is not a religion.

So atheists want to change the Calendar because... ?

Because we don’t share the Christian assumption that their religion deserves to be named in our timekeeping system. It never should have been put there in the first place, and we’re undoing the mistake.

Yeah atheism is a religion. Y'all are just in denial about it.

Not wanting to reference someone else’s religion every time you refer to a date does not make someone religious. This is a silly take, and I think you know it.

[–] Halasham@dormi.zone 4 points 9 months ago

Citation needed.

[–] iAmTheTot@kbin.social 6 points 9 months ago

In addition to other people explaining why this is the case, I'd just like to point out that there would never be a "year zero", regardless of when you started counting years.

[–] Tristaniopsis@aussie.zone 1 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Plus the fact that Jesus wasn’t a real person, but a complete fabrication.

[–] usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I go with Hitchens' take; the ridiculous census that's shoehorned in seems like an effort to reconcile a real person with the prophecies. Jesus was likely a real person whose life has been exaggerated and built upon to the point of legend.

[–] Tristaniopsis@aussie.zone 6 points 9 months ago

I’ll post this twice to address different replies.

https://youtu.be/LTllC7TbM8M?si=BOMT6GovxV_1ImkF

Very interesting lecture and the guy says no one has provided any proof that there was in fact a real person called Jesus at the time. All the ‘proof’ relies on other people claiming that there’s proof / and or pointing to the Bible.

[–] NoIWontPickaName@kbin.social 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I do believe there are historical records of jesus of Nazareth.

The whole religious thing is separate.

[–] Tristaniopsis@aussie.zone 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Not trying to pick a fight, but can you point to these records?

[–] NoIWontPickaName@kbin.social 5 points 9 months ago

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

Here is the wiki link to other’s attempts.

I tried to check some citations, but they only the books that I am not willing to buy because I’m just not that into the proof either way.

I feel like this supports my mild amount of support.

[–] NoIWontPickaName@kbin.social 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I can not unfortunately.

That’s why I led with I believe, I just remember hearing about it.

Let me finish my coffee and get woke up and I will try to do some poking around. :)

[–] Tristaniopsis@aussie.zone 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Don’t sweat it. Watch (or listen to) the link I posted and then consider.

[–] NoIWontPickaName@kbin.social 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ima be real.

I barely cared about this to make a 30 second google search.

There is the slightest possibility that I would have clicked a 5 minute video, with an interesting thumbnail, and watched it if the person was interesting in the first 30 seconds, and that is where the possibilities end.

I spent more than 5 minutes trying to nail just the right amount of snark and sass vs funny vs respectfulness in this comment.

[–] Tristaniopsis@aussie.zone 2 points 9 months ago

All good. The guy is an academic who researched as many resources from the time as he could, for his phd. He says there’s no actual evidence for a real person called Jesus. Even the ‘disciples’ admit in their writing that it’s made up.

[–] Venat0r@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus#Non-Christian_sources

[–] Tristaniopsis@aussie.zone 2 points 9 months ago

I’ll post this twice to address different replies.

https://youtu.be/LTllC7TbM8M?si=BOMT6GovxV_1ImkF

Yes I’ve just read the Wikipedia link you’ve posted but it doesn’t actually point to non-religious sources. All these things are like the Spider-Man meme.

AFAIK there are no Roman administration records of Pontius Pilate executing sone dude called Jesus.

It’s all made up later on.