Unpopular Opinion
Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!
How voting works:
Vote the opposite of the norm.
If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow down.
Guidelines:
Tag your post, if possible (not required)
- If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
- If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].
Rules:
1. NO POLITICS
Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.
2. Be civil.
Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...
Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.
5. No trolling.
This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.
6. Defend your opinion
This is a bit of a mix of rules 4 and 5 to help foster higher quality posts. You are expected to defend your unpopular opinion in the post body. We don't expect a whole manifesto (please, no manifestos), but you should at least provide some details as to why you hold the position you do.
Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
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I think the difference between doubting Pythagoras and doubting Jesus is that no one is claiming g Pythagoras existed to bolster their claims on holding a moral superiority. A lot of historical research (especially early on) into the history of Jesus is done by religious scholars who are explicitly seeking to back up things they already believe. I don't trust them. Most of the consensus is built upon this pre-conceived idea that he's real, and so the support is on shaky footing.
No one really cares if Pythagoras existed or not, so it's not worth considering. A lot of people hold a certain (potentially harmful, or at least ignorant of reality) view on the world because of a supposed figure named Jesus, and the fact there isn't much evidence he existed at all pretty heavily breaks the illusion we know he did miraculous stuff. If it's questionable that he even existed then it's certainly questionable that he did anything special.
The fact is, historical consensus is built on backing up a belief, in this case. Not on fact originally. It becomes incredibly hard and dangerous to your career to question the consensus without evidence —and you can't have evidence of non-existence. That means anytime anyone questions it people yell "most historians agree!" and no further questions are asked. I think it's much healthier to question it, regardless of what the consensus is. It wouldn't be the first time it's been wrong, and it can't hurt to be skeptical.
Pythagoras literally ran a mystery cult, and was associated for centuries with magical/divine powers after. Look at what probably happened to Hippasus.
Modern Bible scholars disconnect any ideas about moral superiority. The goal is to understand Jesus as a man, to the point where you can find polemics by modern Christian scholars about how godless the field is.
It’s good to question things, but there needs to be reasoning behind your question. There needs to be some sort of explanation of how a conspiracy developed to make a guy up who was crucified (Jewish conceptions of the Messiah at the time were more a kingly type ordained to overthrow the Roman yoke, and crucifixion is a pretty humiliating death…) Where is the motive, means and opportunity for a bunch of people to simultaneously decide this guy existed?
No one alive today cares. At the time, sure. No one is a part of his cult today, unlike Jesus's cult.
Like I said, it's based on knowledge from people who didn't. I feel like you're purposefully ignoring parts of what I said.
There does not need to be reasoning to not believe something. There needs to be reasoning to believe something. I don't believe Jesus existed in the same way I don't believe any other person who we don't know about existed. I just don't hold a belief. It doesn't matter to me, and I haven't seen enough evidence to actively hold a belief, and I don't care enough to try. It's not important to me.