Lets talk about Saul/Paul baby..

[Sassy]

What nobody seems to grasp... not even the author of the thread... is that Paul was a follower and doer rather than an author and king as Christ.

It is clear from Paul's treatment of the first Christians he was a Jew who felt that Christianity was not from God.
However it was personal experience of the Christ that soon changed his mind and he became a follower.

Even today, many fail to grasp that Paul would have had to have living relationship with Christ and the One true God to be able to be able to understand the key role of Christ.

[Red Giant]

No, I'm not saying that it is unknown, but that some people like to claim that Paul created Christianity despite evidence that there were groups of what we now call 'Christians' before he arrived on the scene.

Christian is only Greek for Messianic.  But there were other Messiahs, who had their own cults, which were also called Christians.

Those other Christians didn't disappear - they fused.  Which is why Irenaeus had to treat their leaders as Christian heretics.  Simon Magus thought he was the Messiah himself, and his views were still current within what Irenaeus regarded as the Church.  That Church certainly wasn't Orthodox.

Nowadays Christians like to have it both ways.  They'll claim for Jesus early cults and movements about whose beliefs we know nothing.  Then the next minute, any modern movement that's slightly off-line will be deemed not Christian.

As for Paul, he started Jesus cults in small places, but every major city he visited, even Damascus, had a small Jesus cult already.  I don't think he or his views were widely known until his letters were circulated.

But the massive contribution of his letters was the whole theory that salvation was possible because of the sacrifice of Jesus. 
 

[Hope]

Christian is only Greek for Messianic.  But there were other Messiahs, who had their own cults, which were also called Christians.

I'm not sure whether the folk at Antioch who first coined the term were necessarily Greek, RG - and as far as I'm aware there was no other group who were referred to as Christians.  Do you have any evidence for this suggestion?

[Hope]

Which is?

It saves you having to attempt to make a rational argument against my stance.  Remember, Shakes, that asking someone for evidence to support an assertion is something that most people here have done over the last few years.

[Shaker]

It saves you having to attempt to make a rational argument against my stance.

Pointing out when somebody is employing the negative proof fallacy (which is a form of defective reasoning), the fallacy you obviously love best and employ the most, is the rational response in that circumstance.

Remember, Shakes, that asking someone for evidence to support an assertion is something that most people here have done over the last few years.

Fantastic. I look forward to the day when you start to provide evidence for your innumerable assertions for once. It'll make a very pleasant change.

[jeremyp]

I'm not sure whether the folk at Antioch who first coined the term were necessarily Greek

"Christ" is greek for "Anointed one". Messiah is Hebrew for Anointed one.

In a way, everybody in that region was Greek since it had been conquered by Alexander three hundred years previously.

[jeremyp]

It saves you having to attempt to make a rational argument against my stance.

Since your stance seems to be "it was impossible to write fiction in the first century", the rational argument makes itself.

[Hope]

Since your stance seems to be "it was impossible to write fiction in the first century", the rational argument makes itself.

If that was my stance, I'd agree that the rational argument makes itself - but that isn't my stance.  The reason I argue against opinions like yours is that they assume that the people concerned have to be making the story up.  They also assume that any deity has to adhere to naturalistic principles that we - as humans - have established based on our own understandings. 

Unless you can prove to us that there is no such thing as a deity, (and, no, that isn't any sort of fallacy by the way, since it is you and others like you who have asserted that there isn't a deity and I'm asking for the evidence behind that assertion) I will continue to believe that human reality goes beyond the purely physical that science deals with.  I do that because I have experienced things in my life that science not only hasn't explained to this day, but which scientists have said are beyond the 'remit' of science.

[Shaker]

Unless you can prove to us that there is no such thing as a deity, (and, no, that isn't any sort of fallacy by the way, since it is you and others like you who have asserted that there isn't a deity

Where was that, then?

I will continue to believe that human reality goes beyond the purely physical that science deals with. I do that because I have experienced things in my life that science not only hasn't explained to this day, but which scientists have said are beyond the 'remit' of science.

So instead of the negative proof fallacy, you've moved on to the argument from ignorance ... alias the negative proof fallacy. How do you do it, Holmes?