@fredsbend I agree with you on that.

Reminds me of something Dawkins once said. He said that since Jesus was an "enlightened" person for his time, he'd be an atheist if he were around today.

Ever since I heard that, I've been wanting to write some kind of a fake news article or sketch where Jesus returns (i.e. the Second Coming) but tells people that he's an atheist now, and doesn't fancy himself God, and please leave him alone because he's walking to Hawaii to retire.

@El'endiaStarman I don't find his debunking to be very convincing. There were all sorts of heterodox movements swirling around the fringes of Judaism then, just as there are now. Arguing about what "Jews wouldn't do" assumes that all Jews were mainstream Jews. That clearly was not the case then, just as it's not now.

Further, Jesus' disciples were Galileans, which immediately puts them on the wrong side of the (ancient Jewish) tracks.

@Mr.Bultitude Haha! Good one! But you already spilled the punch line . . . .

@fredsbend Thing is, his claim to be God is actually not one of the clearest things he says. He generally couches it in elliptical language and leaves his listeners to draw their own conclusions. In particular, saying that he is the Messiah is not a claim to be God, because in Judaism the Messiah is a human figure. The "Son of Man," which he uses to refer to himself, is a link to language used of the prophets, in the prophets.

As a mathematician, I have no idea what "elliptical" could mean in the context of language. :P

Even using the title "son of God" would not necessarily be seen as claiming to be divine, just as "children of God" doesn't necessarily imply actual godhood, but rather a relationship to God in which God is seen as a parent figure.

@El'endiaStarman Doesn't "elliptical" refer to an exercise machine? Or something . . . .

@LeeWoofenden Well, yes, though arguably it's called that because the user's feet go in an elliptical motion.

It would be an antonym of "direct language" I believe

@El'endiaStarman Hmm. Can you quote any authority that supports that derivation of the word?

I have none. Just personal experience. :P

@Mr.Bultitude As neat as the argument is, it's really a piece of apologetics, and not something convincing to someone who isn't already convinced—or desirous of being convinced. The weak link is precisely what the article attempts to debunk: that we really have no way of knowing that the Gospels present what Jesus actually said and did rather than what its writers later attributed to Jesus. Theories about this vary widely even among major Bible scholars.

@Mr.Bultitude But mainly, I object to Christians attempting to back skeptics into a corner about Jesus. Can't people be allowed to make up their own minds about who he was, without being "forced" to think of him in only in one of three prescribed ways: Lord, liar, or lunatic?

There are many more choices than that. And even the moral influence theory has a long history in Christianity, and doesn't intrinsically require Jesus to be God. Why try to argue people out of seeing Jesus as a great teacher? For those who aren't prepared to accept him as God, isn't that better than writing him off as a liar or a lunatic?

What passes for interpretation is sometimes astounding...

@El'endiaStarman "relating to an ellipsis" - see Merriam-Webster definition 2.

@MattGutting Yes, of course I meant speaking in a roundabout way rather than directly. I think everyone understood that.

@curiousdannii On this, I agree with you 100%! I am astounded by the crazy stuff traditional Christians manage to wring out of the Bible—or more accurately read into the Bible.

@curiousdannii But I do agree that that's a particularly egregious example.

FMS has left us. We certainly didn't always see eye to eye, but he was a valuable contributor.

@Nathaniel I just noticed that as well. Sad tidings.

If anyone wants to keep up with him, he's got a blog that he regularly maintains.

@Mr.Bultitude Noticed how and where?

@LeeWoofenden I figured it out when I got a small rep change (lost 2 points), realized that several others had taken bigger hits (Geremia lost 86 this week), and saw that his icon was missing on the users screen.

@LeeWoofenden I noticed when I got an upvote on an answer to a question of his, noticed the asker was a deleted user, and remembered that FMS had been the asker. I verified by looking up his network profile and seeing that his Christianity profile was gone and that his bio contained a request for deletion. I was about to say something here when I saw that Nathaniel already had.

@Nathaniel Well, I can't say I'm terribly surprised. He seemed to be getting into a lot of conflict in recent weeks. And his posts seemed oddly out of sync with the site guidelines for such a long-time user.

@LeeWoofenden He really was hit and miss. Sometimes his posts would be so good, but then sometimes they'd be so bad.

Then he deletes his account 18 months later.

I think that's why he hung around as long as he did. He knew that sometimes his posts were very well received, and that rep is like crack. But when you have trouble on an SE site it is very frustrating.

I know I've signed off on a few and will probably never use them again. Naturally, I think it's their fault, but in this moment of humility, I'm willing to admit that perhaps it is mine.

@fredsbend Or it's no one's fault; just goals that don't align.

I'll take that. I'm a bit disheartened that he apparently never voted on any of my posts. I've had no rep adjustment, except for +1's on deleted posts that I downvoted.

@Nathaniel I suspect you've see the "user removed" description on your rep page?

@fredsbend He didn't seem to vote much... I don't remember his vote count exactly, but it was low. Only Geremia seemed to lose around 100 points; everyone else is much lower.

huh

I find it odd that some people just don't vote. Pretty much ever.

What perplexes me most is when someone will answer a decent question, but not upvote it.

Don't they realize that seeing a +5 right before I read your answer will make me more reasonable and complacent, and therefore more likely to upvote and even select?

@fredsbend Yeah, me too. But I guess, whatever floats your boat. I'm grateful for people that are on the other end of the pendulum and vote even though they rarely post.

@fredsbend Apparently not, but I'll keep that in mind :)

I think C.SE has one of the most reliable community voting patterns of any site that I've participated on. Skeptics comes close, but they vote less on questions, I think.

SO is a waste of time. It's practically impossible to get +5 on a post there.

I do find myself less likely to vote on new users' posts, but I try to combat that, looking for earnest effort instead, if they are under 200 rep.

Yeah, we seem to have a nice voting base; not as capricious as other sites like ELU and more consistent than the smaller sites like the beta language sites.

Another sad thing about him leaving is that so much of his material is lost... he had a lot of downvoted posts that were either decent in themselves or ultimately generated good content, either his own or someone else's. Now that's all gone.

@fredsbend @Nathaniel I got -4 rep from a user removal about four hours ago. Could that be FMS? Or is the timing wrong? Can't figure out what would have caused +4 rep from a user, however.

@LeeWoofenden That's the one. It's a combination of your downvotes getting reversed and his votes on your posts.

Because all his posts with negative vote counts were wiped out.

@Nathaniel Well, I suppose there could have been mutual votes canceling each other out. It's just a slightly strange number. -4.

@LeeWoofenden Yeah, I thought the same thing. But if he upvoted one of your questions, and you downvoted one of his answers, then that would do it.

@Nathaniel Doesn't deleting a user simply convert the username to a "userxxxx" type name? Why would anything of his be lost?

@LeeWoofenden See point 10 of this: How does deleting work? What can cause a post to be deleted, and what does that actually mean? What are the criteria for deletion?

Plus, even though I have 10k and can see deleted posts, I don't have any way of viewing the list of what was deleted. So I think only a mod can go through that material to restore what is worth salvaging.

@Nathaniel Okay, thanks.