Christ in Egypt: The Mythicist Position

[Vishnu]

Great, thanks!

[tat tvam asi]

In our quest to determine what is "mythicism," we discover that this movement was epitomized by Dr. David F. Strauss, who had come out in 1835 with The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined, a book highly critical of Christianity that pointedly identified as myth much of the gospel story regarding Christ. Strauss was not an atheist or skeptical mythicist, however, as he did not dismiss the gospel story as "mere" fairytales. Rather, being a Christian minister, he attempted to imbue the Christian mythos with spiritual, if not allegorical, meaning. This perspective represents one plank of the mythicist position, as mythicism in its totality does not dismiss myth simply as something fabricated but instead recognizes the ancient wellspring of profundity and comprehension from which it draws. It appears that Strauss was encouraged in his efforts by the success of German biblical criticism—most widely known through the group called the "Tübingen School," as established by Dr. Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792-1860), whose own work in comparative religion was considered "revolutionary."

This is an interesting way to start off the history of mythicism link. Robert more or less falls into this category of mythicism in a round about way. Many respond to the discovery of Christian mythic origins as a way to seek out some deeper spiritual meaning. And in this case a natural spirituality. Then of course we have the strongly atheist response which cares little for religious meaning but can at the same time appreciate the myths for what they are. Everyone pretty much enjoys comparative mythology whether or not they choose to carry on a religious response to the myths. And that's probably the glue that has held various mythicists together through history regardless of the different responses to it...

[Robert Tulip]

the strongly atheist response which cares little for religious meaning but can at the same time appreciate the myths for what they are.

Tat, some may consider this to be contradictory. If "what the myths are" is intrinsically bound up with their religious meaning, it becomes difficult to appreciate them while caring little for religious meaning.

How I see it is that astrotheology shows that metaphysics has to be grounded in physics. This means that the metaphysics of theology and myth largely originates in efforts to explain nature, but these efforts gradually got detached from the original intent, until that intent was largely lost to sight and memory. Yet, in analyzing a question such as the relation between Christ and the Sun, we can find the origin of the salvation motifs in ancient nature worship. So the physical observation of the revival of the sun each day and year led to a metaphysical representation of the sun as a god, and then this metaphysical idea separated over time from its natural origin. Yet, it is the natural physical origin that gives the metaphysical idea its power, with an ongoing subconscious resonance among believers, who do not understand what it is that they worship. They idolise Jesus Christ as an imaginary man, when really it is the constant regeneration of nature at the source of the myth that gives the hidden impetus to the religion.

Atheism rejects this method of enquiry utterly. Atheism holds that metaphysics is false consciousness, and has to be rejected a priori in favor of empirical science. In rejecting mysticism as illogical and dangerously irrational, atheism tends to claim a full understanding which ignores the sense of mystery in life. Atheism makes no effort to see how the religious imagination could have evolved from an original accurate perception, suggesting instead that the original source for all metaphysics is delusory fantasy, as seen in the degraded supernatural forms of contemporary religion.

[tat tvam asi]

You know Robert, appreciate the myths for what they actually are. Stories. The myths are simply stories. The stories have much to do with the sun and just about any good atheist in this day and age knows that. It's bloody obvious to the learned.

In my case I only gained a true sense of mystery in life by crossing over from theism to atheism. In theism there was some degree of mystery for sure, but that was entirely clouded over by a false sense of knowing things that are not truly known. I thought I knew where life came from. I thought I knew the earth was young. I thought that I knew the meaning of life. I thought that I knew a lot of things that are simply not so in reality. And the sense of true mystery hit me like a freight train when I woke up and realized that I didn't actually know the half of it. All of that false sense of security was suddenly stripped away. And suddenly, ironically, I was then facing the real meaning of the religious function of myth which is simply standing in awe of the mysterium tremendum that men have labeled as "God."

I had to move away from God belief to understand what God actually represents. And having moved away, and learned what the God concept represents as a personification of the human sense of mystery towards existence, I can never return to theism. I am practicing the religious function right now as an atheist, the actual religious function that theists largely neglect. The religions, Christianity almost first and foremost, merely block it out of vision to where no one really understands the true mystery of it all the function isn't necesarily working. And so the religious / mystical function can serve as the worst enemy of organized religion as we now understand it. People discover the truth, the truth sets them free, and here we are. Indepth study of the God concept levels theism to waste in that way. And I expect this reality and realization only to increase in society over time and evolution while knowledge and awareness continue to increase...

[Interbane]

Atheism makes no effort to see how the religious imagination could have evolved from an original accurate perception, suggesting instead that the original source for all metaphysics is delusory fantasy, as seen in the degraded supernatural forms of contemporary religion.

That's a straw man of individual atheists. I've spent a great deal of time thinking about such things. It's not that I reject the ideas emotionally, or that I'm overly invested in rejecting them. I see such attempts as false for good reason. First, men write stories. Even if one or two things from history were truly evidence of metaphysical events, they'd be drops in an ocean of fiction. In fact, the precedent is so high that I'd wonder at the motive of anyone who claimed that those couple of drops were different than the ocean. Is it possible? Sure. Is the burden of proof massive? Yes.

Secondly, there's simply no need to hypothesize anything metaphysical. Just as there's no need to hypothesize that trees grow upward because the ground is pressurized. The "spot is filled", we have explanations in the areas that people wish to insert metaphysics.

This means that the metaphysics of theology and myth largely originates in efforts to explain nature, but these efforts gradually got detached from the original intent, until that intent was largely lost to sight and memory.

I don't think the efforts ever deviated from the original intent. I believe the efforts were right on course the entire time, and the fiction that was produced mixed fact and fantasy in the same way that men recombine ideas every single day all over the Earth. Even after dogma was ossified, the followers believed they had an explanation to all nature.

The one clue that always rings the alarm bells are motive. Religion usurps personal motive better than anything I've ever seen. Perhaps it has something to do with what Neitzsche said about the "Ultimate Concern". That geological periods can be demarcated by the movements of the stars doesn't mean the ancients understood this. The fiction they've produced would look exactly the same as it does now.

If, at some point in history, an oral story was told that passed along knowledge of the previous ice age, I'd have a hard time believing it survived in any semblance of it's original self after as little as 500 years. Once written, it would have a bit better fidelity, but would still morph far too much. If there is even a whisper of such wisdom in the bible that was gleaned from firsthand experience at some point 20,000 years ago then passed along orally, it would be extraordinary. I don't think people are capable of passing a message with such fidelity without objectifying the knowledge. Using stars as "bullet points" to summarize stories would have the same faults, all meaningful content is within the heads of humans, and subject to those faults.

There is no reason to believe the ancients passed along such knowledge from ages past. There is only motive. They would be telling stories about the stars at any point in time, with all the stories understood as fiction. To cherry pick one single part of this collection of fiction because it can be interpreted in a way that fits into a hypothesis is no better than religious rationalization. Why not consider the sun as a chariot? If the goal is to harmonize religion with "anything", you'll find a cherry that works best for you. That includes harmonizing metaphysics with physics.

[jRup]

This discussion, both serious and amiable, reminds me that my 'research' lists religion and its associated depths and surfaces, as at its core, entertainment. Were we able to accept it as such, it could be a relatively pleasant, productive interaction. A game an individual plays with himself, then shares. It is filled with twisting trails and astonishing discoveries, with the kind of wonder Albert Ple calls will-power (not the 'nose-to-the-grindstone' slavery which evolved into a Protestant 'ethic') - a pleasurable, exciting mental and physical 'occupation' taken from early Islamic scholarly thought (from the old Sanskrit 'wel' as in well being). Learning, understanding, debate, imagining, questioning, supposing, letting that Einstein brand of mysticism take form, devotion to the notion - all leading to scriptural praise for 'the scholar' who is elevated above all other devotees. Of course nowadays 'the scholar' of many faiths studies only one book only for the purpose of domination and has forgotten all about 'entertainment' ... What I have seen here has that more genial flavor. Such exchanges expand our minds, make us work at the thing we enjoy so much. Science keeps us constantly flexible, nimble, ever adding new material to the journey. It takes courage and self-confidence to embrace change, because most religion is designed to instill dependency yet also fear and mistrust. I am reminded of two tribes which have never heard of religion, greed or warfare. One lives in remote Southeast Asia, the other in the Amazon. Both live under a vast forest cover and seldom see the sun, let alone the stars. The early part of their day is spent gathering food and completing simple chores. Then they eagerly huddle together, men and women, children and pets. They spend the rest of the day telling each other of their dreams, of the fantastic voyages they each took while apart. Not much 'drama', just comfort, mutual support, pleasure. Living.

[tat tvam asi]

How I see it is that astrotheology shows that metaphysics has to be grounded in physics.

This statement alone is cause for confusion. But I understand the entire paragraph completely and you did a good job of explaining it Robert.

This means that the metaphysics of theology and myth largely originates in efforts to explain nature, but these efforts gradually got detached from the original intent, until that intent was largely lost to sight and memory.

This is entirely true. We can see the progression through time where ancient peoples knowingly mythologized their observations of nature. This brought in God or Neter (forces of nature) symbolism in Egypt which were continually used and re-used, hybridized again and again, and eventually found their way into the common era with the Hermetic writings, Gnosticism, and Christianity. These religious movements were further and further removed from the original intent of mythologizing nature to where the flashy symbolic images were mistaken as literally gods and eventually Yahweh as transcendent of nature and the cosmos completely.

Yet, in analyzing a question such as the relation between Christ and the Sun, we can find the origin of the salvation motifs in ancient nature worship. So the physical observation of the revival of the sun each day and year led to a metaphysical representation of the sun as a god, and then this metaphysical idea separated over time from its natural origin. Yet, it is the natural physical origin that gives the metaphysical idea its power, with an ongoing subconscious resonance among believers, who do not understand what it is that they worship. They idolise Jesus Christ as an imaginary man, when really it is the constant regeneration of nature at the source of the myth that gives the hidden impetus to the religion.

This holds true whether or not any historical person was used as a base for the solar myth. In a reality where we observe and retain constant natural cycling, over and over again, there is something in the way of a strong psychological power involved in using the dying and rising motif. They've confused the living hell out of the motif in Christianity, but nevertheless the power of the appeal of the religion points squarely back at the writers use of the solar cycle and organic life cycle of the annual year. The Great Year is more obscure and for the benefit of the priest class more or less, but still a powerful psychological tool nonetheless. They bring in political issues of the time to the table which also tugs at peoples heart strings in powerful ways. The passion story can be so dramatic to the point of making people cry their eyes out about what hardships Jesus had to endure. But we're talking about the metaphorical life and death of the sun when all is stripped bare. The three day solstice and the spring equinox three months later. We are indeed looking at a myth based on continuing the life cycle mythologies of antiquity, the ones that really were based on basic observation of nature as you've said. And it seems fitting to me that society should come full circle like this and suddenly wake up to the fact that these stories aren't meant to be taken so literally and historically accurate in the first place. It's a rather nasty lie to zealously go around promoting them as such, although the proselytizers may be completely convinced that they're doing the right thing and not lying to anyone at all.

They're locked into a sub-conscious tangle where the underlying truth of a cyclic nature reality experienced by all is drawing them in, but they have no idea what the truth factor deep in the myth really entails. It's not true that some magical Jewish God-Man died and rose from the grave in three days (in a literal factual sense) in any provable way, but it is true and completely provable that the sun stops moving visibly for three days at the solstices and the reverses direction - which is what the myth is really playing off of. I drive to work every morning on a road that faces due east, much as the Sphinx and cause ways at the Giza necropolis are oriented (NE, E, SE). I read through Buvaul's "The Message of the Sphinx" and took in all that he noted about the Giza necropolis and how the cause ways are oriented to the sun's southern to northern journey through the year when looking towards the east. I experience the very same view here and I've spent the last year consciously paying attention to the annual journey of the sun from the furthest southeast point (to the right of the road) to the furthest northeast point (to the left of the road). And this month it's southern journey away from the summer solstice is bringing the sun, or Jesus / Horus if you will, closer and closer to the point of true east. The bright morning solar star.

This is such a simple observation. It's easily mapped out by anyone paying attention to it. And it would seem that this annual journey - witnessed over and over and over again - must have some subconscious value in everyone's mind. Or at least a lot of peoples minds. Once you catch it then it's a real "aha" moment. The myth of Jesus makes so much more sense when understanding all of this astronomical history behind mythological / religious evolution. I think it's more than clear that it all started out as natural physical observation greatly personified and given metaphysical decoration with time. But I understand all of that as an atheist outside of religion, not a theist within religion. There's no reason that atheists shouldn't or wouldn't be able to understand mythology in these terms. Yeah there are still a lot out there that still don't quite get it, but this knowledge is only gaining awareness on the internet and elsewhere. There's plenty of debate about it and we have ZG part 1 mainly to thank for the world wide burst in publicity (And Murdock to thank for inspiring much of ZG part 1). Atheism seems to be adapting to the debate with pseudo-skeptics bringing opposition and the more learned understanding what becomes of the pseudo-skeptics arguments. GodAlmighty certainly tanned some rears on youtube with his "The differences outweigh the similarities" series. The argument was rendered meaningless just like that. Those atheists which you oppose are easily refuted. But what about the mythicist atheists? How exactly are they refute d in your opinion Robert?

[Robert Tulip]

You know Robert, appreciate the myths for what they actually are. Stories. The myths are simply stories. The stories have much to do with the sun and just about any good atheist in this day and age knows that. It's bloody obvious to the learned.

This is all good discussion, and I will go through the comments in order. The big myths are not simply stories. They provide a framework of meaning for a community. The popularity of myths is generally a function of how well they point to a deeper purpose. For example in Christianity, the cult of the Blessed Virgin Mary says much about patriarchal attitudes towards sex. By idolising a virgin goddess, the subtext that sex is evil is used to justify monkish chastity. There may well be some myths that lack a deeper meaning, but I suspect you would be hard pressed to find popular myths that lacked any allegorical cosmic content.

In my case I only gained a true sense of mystery in life by crossing over from theism to atheism. In theism there was some degree of mystery for sure, but that was entirely clouded over by a false sense of knowing things that are not truly known. I thought I knew where life came from. I thought I knew the earth was young. I thought that I knew the meaning of life. I thought that I knew a lot of things that are simply not so in reality. And the sense of true mystery hit me like a freight train when I woke up and realized that I didn't actually know the half of it. All of that false sense of security was suddenly stripped away. And suddenly, ironically, I was then facing the real meaning of the religious function of myth which is simply standing in awe of the mysterium tremendum that men have labeled as "God."

This question of mystery is key. There is false mystery and true mystery. An example of false mystery is how a virgin could give birth, pointing to how a supernatural entity could miraculously intervene on our planet. The true mystery here is how the meme of the virgin birth is allegory for natural events, for example the sense of the night as virginal and pure, giving birth to the day. Another true mystery is how the allegory within religion was so successfully repressed for two thousand years.

True mystery helps to explain reality. We see this in science, with mysteries such as those of quantum physics, such as entanglement, wave particle duality and uncertainty. These are mysteries because science has an axiom that the universe operates according to consistent laws of cause and effect, but it is so far impossible to fully explain the operation of cause and effect at subatomic level. It remains a mystery for our current level of knowledge. But no genuine scientists say that the answer to the mystery is that a supernatural God breaks the laws of physics. Rather, it is that science does not fully understand the laws of the universe, and is not even sure if these laws can be fully comprehended, in view of the difficulty of observing things at subatomic scale.

I had to move away from God belief to understand what God actually represents. And having moved away, and learned what the God concept represents as a personification of the human sense of mystery towards existence, I can never return to theism. I am practicing the religious function right now as an atheist, the actual religious function that theists largely neglect. The religions, Christianity almost first and foremost, merely block it out of vision to where no one really understands the true mystery of it all the function isn't necesarily working. And so the religious / mystical function can serve as the worst enemy of organized religion as we now understand it. People discover the truth, the truth sets them free, and here we are. Indepth study of the God concept levels theism to waste in that way. And I expect this reality and realization only to increase in society over time and evolution while knowledge and awareness continue to increase...

Belief is epistemically corrupt. To say you believe something when you lack evidence for it, and when it conflicts with the balance of probabilities, is just blind faith, and entirely unethical, a cancer for logic. The mystical function, in Campbell's terms as I understand it, looks to explain life against the mystery of existence. Supernaturalism is not an explanation, but a pretence of explanation with no basis. Accepting that the universe is mysterious, and seeing that the causal operation of physical law is axiomatic, leaves no space for a god of the gaps. Rather, God should be seen as a description of how time is surrounded and enframed by eternity, in logic, physics and ethics.

[Robert Tulip]

This discussion, both serious and amiable, reminds me that my 'research' lists religion and its associated depths and surfaces, as at its core, entertainment. Were we able to accept it as such, it could be a relatively pleasant, productive interaction. A game an individual plays with himself, then shares.

jRup, do you not see a small contradiction between a discussion that is serious and one that is for entertainment? Entertainment is at essence something that does not matter, while serious discussion is about formulating a common understanding. I think rather there is something exciting about working towards a coherent understanding of religion, but to call it a game removes any sense of importance.

It is filled with twisting trails and astonishing discoveries, with the kind of wonder Albert Ple calls will-power (not the 'nose-to-the-grindstone' slavery which evolved into a Protestant 'ethic') - a pleasurable, exciting mental and physical 'occupation' taken from early Islamic scholarly thought (from the old Sanskrit 'wel' as in well being). Learning, understanding, debate, imagining, questioning, supposing, letting that Einstein brand of mysticism take form, devotion to the notion - all leading to scriptural praise for 'the scholar' who is elevated above all other devotees.

Looking up Ple, I see he is a French theologian who wrote on Freud and Aquinas. I confess that French thought tends to leave me cold precisely because of the lack of seriousness you describe, although I feel some of them cannot tell if they are serious or not. I opened the thread on mythicism as deconstruction of Christianity by citing Derrida, but he is a classic of the French thinker who speaks in elliptical oracles of extreme obscurity, making language into a game. The Einstein brand of mysticism is quite different, grounded rigorously in observation, rather than seeing culture as self referential.

Of course nowadays 'the scholar' of many faiths studies only one book only for the purpose of domination and has forgotten all about 'entertainment' ... What I have seen here has that more genial flavor. Such exchanges expand our minds, make us work at the thing we enjoy so much. Science keeps us constantly flexible, nimble, ever adding new material to the journey. It takes courage and self-confidence to embrace change, because most religion is designed to instill dependency yet also fear and mistrust.

I still feel that 'entertainment' is not the right word. In contrasting it to domination you make an important point, but not of religion as a game, rather as a serious reverence and awe in the face of the numinous. Geniality is important as a mark of humility and respect, but should not be misinterpreted as being light hearted.

I am reminded of two tribes which have never heard of religion, greed or warfare. One lives in remote Southeast Asia, the other in the Amazon. Both live under a vast forest cover and seldom see the sun, let alone the stars. The early part of their day is spent gathering food and completing simple chores. Then they eagerly huddle together, men and women, children and pets. They spend the rest of the day telling each other of their dreams, of the fantastic voyages they each took while apart. Not much 'drama', just comfort, mutual support, pleasure. Living

I often think that primitive life is happier than civilization. With few material needs it is possible to devote time to the pleasure of deepening relationships. You may call that entertainment, but the difference is that modern entertainment is more about an escape from the gloom and drudgery of existence into a world of fantasy, whereas the joy of authentic worship is about understanding reality with greater intensity.

[Robert Tulip]

How I see it is that astrotheology shows that metaphysics has to be grounded in physics.

This statement alone is cause for confusion. But I understand the entire paragraph completely and you did a good job of explaining it Robert.

Yes, many would assume that metaphysics and physics are in fundamental contradiction, so the idea that physics could produce a metaphysics looks odd. Again, my thinking on this topic goes back to Martin Heidegger, the great systematic existentialist, with his trinity of nature, language and truth as scientific types of the old father, son and spirit. These themes are grounded in physical understanding, but cannot possibly be exhausted by physical description alone, and to be discussed require an entry into a sort of mythic realm. As soon as we ask a question like 'what is truth?' those who know the Bible are immediately confronted by the image of a messianic statement of truth to power, and its critique of pragmatic corruption. It is as though to say that truth has no meaning is an abdication of human existence.

This means that the metaphysics of theology and myth largely originates in efforts to explain nature, but these efforts gradually got detached from the original intent, until that intent was largely lost to sight and memory.

This is entirely true. We can see the progression through time where ancient peoples knowingly mythologized their observations of nature. This brought in God or Neter (forces of nature) symbolism in Egypt which were continually used and re-used, hybridized again and again, and eventually found their way into the common era with the Hermetic writings, Gnosticism, and Christianity. These religious movements were further and further removed from the original intent of mythologizing nature to where the flashy symbolic images were mistaken as literally gods and eventually Yahweh as transcendent of nature and the cosmos completely.

This idea that the original intent was to mythologize nature reminds me of Leonardo da Vinci, and his vision of the earth as a macrocosm of the human microcosm. This way of thinking has always existed, but is far harder to express coherently than either the pure materialism of science or the pure spiritualism of alienated religion. It is about bringing everything together into an integrated vision of the whole. It seems such a vision informed Christianity, providing the impetus for its astrotheological imagery, but it was not expressed with sufficient clarity to be properly remembered, and the cosmic vision dissolved like a dream, with the literal story the fragmented memory.

Yet, in analyzing a question such as the relation between Christ and the Sun, we can find the origin of the salvation motifs in ancient nature worship. So the physical observation of the revival of the sun each day and year led to a metaphysical representation of the sun as a god, and then this metaphysical idea separated over time from its natural origin. Yet, it is the natural physical origin that gives the metaphysical idea its power, with an ongoing subconscious resonance among believers, who do not understand what it is that they worship. They idolise Jesus Christ as an imaginary man, when really it is the constant regeneration of nature at the source of the myth that gives the hidden impetus to the religion.

This holds true whether or not any historical person was used as a base for the solar myth. In a reality where we observe and retain constant natural cycling, over and over again, there is something in the way of a strong psychological power involved in using the dying and rising motif. They've confused the living hell out of the motif in Christianity, but nevertheless the power of the appeal of the religion points squarely back at the writers use of the solar cycle and organic life cycle of the annual year. The Great Year is more obscure and for the benefit of the priest class more or less, but still a powerful psychological tool nonetheless. They bring in political issues of the time to the table which also tugs at peoples heart strings in powerful ways. The passion story can be so dramatic to the point of making people cry their eyes out about what hardships Jesus had to endure. But we're talking about the metaphorical life and death of the sun when all is stripped bare. The three day solstice and the spring equinox three months later. We are indeed looking at a myth based on continuing the life cycle mythologies of antiquity, the ones that really were based on basic observation of nature as you've said. And it seems fitting to me that society should come full circle like this and suddenly wake up to the fact that these stories aren't meant to be taken so literally and historically accurate in the first place. It's a rather nasty lie to zealously go around promoting them as such, although the proselytizers may be completely convinced that they're doing the right thing and not lying to anyone at all.

I actually don't think it holds if we regard a historical person as the basis of the solar myth. There is enough evidence of the Pauline construction of Christ as a necessary being emerging from the encounter of the Jewish tradition with the wider world that the traditional idea of a historical Jesus can be seen as a delusional distraction, causing readers to fail to see the truth.

They're locked into a sub-conscious tangle where the underlying truth of a cyclic nature reality experienced by all is drawing them in, but they have no idea what the truth factor deep in the myth really entails. It's not true that some magical Jewish God-Man died and rose from the grave in three days (in a literal factual sense) in any provable way, but it is true and completely provable that the sun stops moving visibly for three days at the solstices and the reverses direction - which is what the myth is really playing off of. I drive to work every morning on a road that faces due east, much as the Sphinx and cause ways at the Giza necropolis are oriented (NE, E, SE). I read through Buvaul's "The Message of the Sphinx" and took in all that he noted about the Giza necropolis and how the cause ways are oriented to the sun's southern to northern journey through the year when looking towards the east. I experience the very same view here and I've spent the last year consciously paying attention to the annual journey of the sun from the furthest southeast point (to the right of the road) to the furthest northeast point (to the left of the road). And this month it's southern journey away from the summer solstice is bringing the sun, or Jesus / Horus if you will, closer and closer to the point of true east. The bright morning solar star.

This sense that the reality of cosmic cycles, especially the day and the year, provides an instinctive psychological framework, opens this problem of how we can psychoanalyse religion as responding to an unconscious need, converting the sense of salvation coming from natural relationship to the sun into a supernatural narrative of relationship to Jesus. Your story of orientation illustrates how a natural sense of place and time creates a feeling of belonging. Imagine how the Egyptians celebrated the annual heliacal rising of Sirius, with the star sending a shaft of light deep into the inner sanctum of the temple and lighting up the giant emerald there, in a ceremony repeated every year for thousands of years.

This is such a simple observation. It's easily mapped out by anyone paying attention to it. And it would seem that this annual journey - witnessed over and over and over again - must have some subconscious value in everyone's mind. Or at least a lot of peoples minds. Once you catch it then it's a real "aha" moment. The myth of Jesus makes so much more sense when understanding all of this astronomical history behind mythological / religious evolution. I think it's more than clear that it all started out as natural physical observation greatly personified and given metaphysical decoration with time. But I understand all of that as an atheist outside of religion, not a theist within religion. There's no reason that atheists shouldn't or wouldn't be able to understand mythology in these terms. Yeah there are still a lot out there that still don't quite get it, but this knowledge is only gaining awareness on the internet and elsewhere. There's plenty of debate about it and we have ZG part 1 mainly to thank for the world wide burst in publicity (And Murdock to thank for inspiring much of ZG part 1). Atheism seems to be adapting to the debate with pseudo-skeptics bringing opposition and the more learned understanding what becomes of the pseudo-skeptics arguments. GodAlmighty certainly tanned some rears on youtube with his "The differences outweigh the similarities" series. The argument was rendered meaningless just like that. Those atheists which you oppose are easily refuted. But what about the mythicist atheists? How exactly are they refute d in your opinion Robert?

The issue with atheism is that there are many strands of thought that accept the truth of science and the falsity of supernatural fantasy, but the differences between these strands have not been a focus of sufficient attention. One of the key assumptions in the Dawkins school of atheism goes back to Karl Popper's critique of Plato, in Popper's argument that any effort to gain a wholistic understanding, a cosmological sense of relation to the universe, is intrinsically suspect and dangerous. Dawkins retains, in my opinion, a close connection to the logical positivist view that there is no meaning outside science. Put so starkly few would agree, but when you scratch the surface of scientists they tend to the view that the meaning in non-scientific pursuits is identical to their objective scientific content.

I would not say Popper is easily refuted, because he is right that wholism readily morphs into mysticism and irrationalism. There seems to be something intrinsically mythical and religious about the idea that humans can articulate how we relate to the universe. This idea of relatedness links to the etymology of the word religion as 're-binding' and to the idea of rational connection in the Greek metaphysics of the logos or word. If language aims to speak the truth of nature, it synthesizes the empirical observations of science into a unitary theory of value. Many atheists might consider a statement like that nothing but word salad, but it illustrates how difficult it is to speak about human relation to reality in any objective and general way.

Where I have difficulty with some mythicist atheist opinions is that I remain of the view that the story of Christ can be rehabilitated, within a scientific world view, as a basis for ethics. The Sermon on the Mount and the Last Judgment remain sublime moral teachings that are entirely subversive towards our fallen world, containing language that speaks truth to power, just as Jesus purportedly did before Pilate. If Christianity started from natural myths, it can return to them, stripped of the supernatural weeds. The validity of the ethics of Christ is entirely separate from the problem of how these stories were twisted by the church. It seems plausible that even the Gospel writers were aware that their text concealed hidden cosmic meanings, yet those meanings have been entirely forgotten and denied by the church. I think many mythicists are bitter about church delusion, to the extent that they find it impossible to reclaim the original meaning of the stories as something that remains vital for our world today. Those who now control those stories for venal secular purposes have no right to monopolise them. Acknowledging the positive power within the Christian values, including faith, love and hope, is a starting point for debate about the real meaning of the text that carries those values.