[simion314]

>Which makes the name a bit of a misnomer - Judas knew what he was doing.

Judas's story is a big point in supporting my atheism , like you had a dude following a God for years, witnessing extreme miracles and still the guy had doubts that the person was a God and at the same time this Gods would want me to believe based only on that old,censored book that contradicts itself with reality and morality 100 times. I would have censored this story too if I was there.

[probably_wrong]

> you had a dude following a God for years, witnessing extreme miracles and still the guy had doubts

The COVID years have inoculated me against that line of thinking (pun intended). If people would deny that the bodies piling up in hospitals are conclusive evidence of something more than "just a flu" then I can totally imagine an individual seeing a miracle and arguing "dunno, maybe he was just a little dead". And I've definitely seen people take money to argue in favor of policies they know to be false, harmful, or both.

[jstanley]

The problem is that the people you're trying to convince do not have firsthand experience of bodies piling up in hospitals.

[veddox]

Well, some of them did. There were a surprising number of doctors and other health-care workers among the Covid/vaccine-sceptics.

[ndsipa_pomu]

I'm also atheist, but I don't have a problem with the Judas story. Firstly, I don't think that the miracles happened as depicted, so a real-life Judas may have thought "I bet he switched the wine and water flasks" or "I know there's just submerged rocks under that water".

Alternatively, if he truly believed in Jesus as a god, then he might think "how could they kill a god?" and would want the silver as he'd expect it to be funny when the Romans couldn't kill him.

[simion314]

I mean miracles like reviving a person that was dead for days, curing blind people, extremely ill people. Like they were togheter for years.

What chances are to convince me that those miracles were real if someone that was there and seen them with his eyes had doubts?

[ndsipa_pomu]

It's unlikely that miracles happened as described in biblical texts due to the length of time between the events and the recording of them. I'd also expect people to exaggerate or even fabricate stories to boost other narratives, so there's a whole bunch of uncertainty surrounding them.

I can imagine Judas hearing someone recounting a miracle and he'd be shaking his head and thinking "I was there, that's not what happened at all".

[veddox]

> It's unlikely that miracles happened as described in biblical texts due to the length of time between the events and the recording of them. I'd also expect people to exaggerate or even fabricate stories to boost other narratives, so there's a whole bunch of uncertainty surrounding them.

I don't think that does justice to the historical weight of the New Testament accounts. We have multiple eye witness accounts of the events surrounding Jesus' life, recorded within a few decades of the events themselves and emerging from an oral tradition that placed a premium on verifiable accuracy. The early Church writings we have (for example Eusebius) make it clear how concerned the first Christians were to ensure the historical reliability of their teaching, and how strongly they opposed the spreading of stories that were of doubtful veracity. In fact, the New Testament itself repeatedly tells its original readers to verify its accounts by asking other eye witnesses (e.g. Luke 1, 1 Corinthians 15).

[ndsipa_pomu]

You may be right as I'm not any kind of bible scholar. However, there does seem to be significant discrepancies between the different New Testament gospels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_reliability_of_the_...

e.g. Did Jesus exorcise demons?

[explaininjs]

Of course He did, it's recorded in 3 of the 4 gospels the He exorcised demons quite frequently, and He even empowered others to exorcise demons. Indeed people exorcise demons in His name to this day. Just because the gospel of John doesn't mention Him exorcising demons doesn't mean there's any sort of discrepancy - he simply didn't feel a need to include it because he was more focused on the nature of Jesus than His specific actions.

As far as I am aware there are no contradictions on the Bible. People often point to the sorts of cases claiming a contradiction, when really it is two authors describing different aspects of a thing that are all simultaneously true.

More apropos would be the accounting of Judas's death: Matthew describes him as hanging himself, whereas Acts says he burst open in a field. However this isn't a contradiction either: it may simply be the case that he hung himself in a field, then over time grew bloated and burst open.

[simion314]

So what is your point? Judas story might be real but the miracles were not real, and Jesus was a regular man?

I honestly don't care if 1% or 5% of the text is real anyway.

[ndsipa_pomu]

My point is that out of all the inconsistencies and bizarreness of various bits of the bible, I find the Judas story itself to be plausible and I don't have a problem with it. I don't think the miracles happened as described and most likely have mundane explanations for them (c.f. magic tricks where many audience members can believe in disappearing elephants), but it's likely that Jesus did exist as there's good evidence that he existed as a historical figure (e.g. evidence of his brother's grave).

[hibernator149]

I think that was the point of the person you're replying to. Either Jesus performed actual miracles, but then the Judas story doesn't make sense; or Jesus was an ordinary mortal, but then Christianity doesn't make sense.

I have heard a story that Judas didn't actually betray Jesus willingly. It had to happen this way and Judas just played his role. Makes the story more tragic and less black and white.

[ndsipa_pomu]

> I mean miracles like reviving a person that was dead for days, curing blind people, extremely ill people

I would consider those miracles to have the most plausible explanations. There's any number of medical conditions that can make a person appear to be dead for days and that's the reason that coffins were sometimes fitted with a bell that could be operated by the "dead body" in case they'd been buried alive after being mistaken for dead.

Blindness can be caused by neurological conditions and presumably be cured by a person encountering someone that they believe to be a representation of their god. The problem is that medical knowledge at that time was limited to say the least, so even assuming that the reports are 100% accurate, there's still a lot of uncertainty as to the conditions that were cured and indeed if they were permanent cures.

Personally, I don't think it likely that we have accurate representations of the miracles described in the bible, so it's somewhat meaningless to dissect the stories that were transmitted orally for centuries before being written down (biblical scholars may be able to show that modern bible descriptions have been changed from the original source documents during translation etc. as well).

[explaininjs]

Have you read the Bible? The walk on water is explicitly described as being very far from the shore on a lake they were all very familiar with, and further it is written that Peter walked on water as well when he had faith, but when his faith faltered he began to sink. That is not how rocks work.

[lazide]

Do you think the text you’ve read was what Judas would have been exposed too?

[jl6]

I'm sure I read a theory somewhere that Judas was actually the true savior. We are told Jesus suffered for our sins, but his suffering was momentary, whereas Judas's suffering in hell is infinite, without being compensated by any posthumous veneration (quite the opposite - eternal vilification). Jesus's execution was just a sideshow by comparison - a distraction from the true sacrifice.

[probably_wrong]

I think you are referring to "Three versions of Judas" by Jorge Luis Borges.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Versions_of_Judas

[jl6]

That is exactly it, thank you!

[thinkingemote]

One might say that the existence of a doubter or rejector lends the story authenticity.

After all we have doubters and people who betray for money today in all walks of life.

What's even more noteworthy about miracles is the report that some of those who had the miracle applied to, who were healed even some of them didn't believe or even say thanks! The point of the miracle maybe was not really to make people believe... it's a mystery to me.

[lelanthran]

>> Judas's story is a big point in supporting my atheism ,

> One might say that the existence of a doubter or rejector lends the story authenticity.

The story? Certainly!

Evidence of that specific god? Not at all (it's actually the opposite).

Let me put it this way:

You get told a story about how someone, $LEADER, had millions of people following his proposal to get rich, hanging on his every word, believing his every utterance, because he claimed to have the people's interest at heart.

Believable? Maybe.

Then you get told that one guy from $LEADER's inner circle, who saw every thing that $LEADER did, and heard everything that $LEADER said, stopped believing that $LEADER was, in actual fact, capable of doing what he said he could do.

Believable? Sure, much more than before.

But .. that still doesn't provide any evidence that $LEADER was, in fact, who he claimed to be, nor that what he claimed was true, nor that he believed what he claimed to be true.

In fact, it's just the opposite - we now have more reason to believe the story, but disbelieve the claims of $LEADER.

Replace $LEADER with SBF and the context with cryptocurrencies.

[simion314]

>One might say that the existence of a doubter or rejector lends the story authenticity.

Not for me, if someone that was in the inner circle and witness so much did not believe then expecting me to believe this stories is too much. Anyway other issue I have are the contradictions with the reality and that the God morality is incompatible with my morality so even if he existed 100% I would not worship him.

[ndsipa_pomu]

Your point about morality reminds me of Stephen Fry's attitude (which I share)

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/feb/01/stephen-fry-...

>In his imaginary conversation with God, Fry says he would tell him: “How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault? It’s not right.

>“It’s utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?”

>Pressed by Byrne over how he would react if he was locked outside the pearly gates, Fry says: “I would say: ‘bone cancer in children? What’s that about?’

>“Because the God who created this universe, if it was created by God, is quite clearly a maniac, utter maniac. Totally selfish. We have to spend our life on our knees thanking him?! What kind of god would do that?”

[boomboomsubban]

If you believe all the miracles are true, you'd see Satan entering Judas to tempt him as kind of a big deal. The kind of thing a normal man couldn't really overcome.

[ndsipa_pomu]

> The kind of thing a normal man couldn't really overcome.

Isn't one of the main points in Christianity that people have free will and so Satan wouldn't be entering and controlling Judas, but would more likely be telling him falsehoods and persuading him to sell Jesus out? i.e. a normal man can always overcome Satan by choosing God, even if it's just right at the end of their life.

[boomboomsubban]

You're supposed to have free will, but nobody is immune to the temptations of sin and at some point even the holiest men fail. Jesus forgives all if you ask.

[ndsipa_pomu]

I'm a confirmed atheist, so I'm not about to ask Jesus for anything, nor any of the thousands of other prophets/gods that different people believe in.

[boomboomsubban]

Ok? I'm in a similar boat, that doesn't mean I can't have some level of understanding about Christian theology.

[ndsipa_pomu]

Sorry, I thought you were trying to get me to convert to some version of Christianity with your "Jesus forgives all if you ask" statement.

I'm actually of the opinion that Christianity held back humanity's development for at least a thousand years.

[simion314]

>If you believe all the miracles are true, you'd see Satan entering Judas to tempt him as kind of a big deal. The kind of thing a normal man couldn't really overcome.

So Judas was setup by God? Give him a test that he will fail?

I also hate the story where God allows Satan to kill some extremly good person children to test him and later to reward him the "good" God gives the man other children( f that God, he kills your children, you pass the test and he is so heartless or impotent to restore your children - an average human would not be such cruel)

[arghwhat]

It's almost as if the whole thing is just stories based on the knowledge and values of the vocal population at the time - women and children being property, mixing crops or fabric being an offense, pigs being off-limits because the parasites killed (depending on your local variation of abrahamism), etc.

My "favorite" part of this is the section of the Old Testament/Torah about "sexual immorality" - if a man violates an unbetrothed woman, the punishment is a fee to the father and marriage to the poor girl. If betrothed, both man and woman is stoned to death (unless it was outside the city), as the woman being guilty for not screaming loud enough to get others to stop the act. Oh, and the reason you shouldn't take your fathers wife is to not "uncover your fathers nakedness" - nothing to do with the woman itself. (Deutoronomy)

The thing reads like a bad joke.

[bregma]

The Judas story marks the biblical transition from the Bad Drunk god that was violent, arbitrary, and demanding of human sacrifice (eg. Isaac, Jesus) into the Feudal Manor Lord god that bestowed the divine right of kings. Many a Roman empoeror or medieval European king gained a throne through the betrayal and sacrifice of others following that model and it was justifiable because it had divine precedent.

[boomboomsubban]

>So Judas was setup by God? Give him a test that he will fail?

Yes. My theology is rusty, but that is supposed to be what sin is. Nobody is free from it, everybody is tempted and fails.

Judas' great crime wasn't selling Jesus for forty silver, Peter is supposed to have committed the same crime by thrice denying Jesus (that never made sense to me, but it's what I was told). Peter realized what he had done, repented, and returned to Jesus while Judas realized what he had done and let his guilt drive him to suicide. He "betrayed" Jesus' forgiveness.

[rhplus]

Like many distinctive parts of the Gospels, the Judas betrayal is included in the story because it lends credence to the idea that Jesus is fulfilling the Hebrew Messianic prophecies from David et al.

[veddox]

The New Testament is pretty open about the fact that what Jesus claimed can be pretty hard to believe. The other disciples doubted Jesus too for a very long time. Yet eventually, what they heard and experienced convinced them enough that they preferred to be put to death rather than deny its truth. What makes you think Judas is more trustworthy than them?

(In fact, the Bible's willingness to talk about the weaknesses of its protagonists makes it all the more believable to me. If the early church leaders had "censored" the story to fit their own interests, why did they leave in all that embarrassing stuff about themselves?)