You are missing a well used , uncrazy method of self comfort... but it is your choice and I repeat it does not make you crazy

@Mcfluwster "self-comfort" by leaning in on fake-ness? Really?
Not even Cold Comfort!

@annewimsey500 No you are quite able to spot a fake . Yes with help. Verification sites exist.

You did not fall for christianity Did you?

@Mcfluwster when I was 11, maybe, then I found Bertrand Russell books in Grandpa's attic.

@annewimsey500 He will always be your friend as he is dead! If you can Talk like him. Well Done!!

If he was not real ,l then it could have been Paul or some other fantasy group that constructed the Fantasy Jesus . The same considerations would apply to that fantasy . What were they trying to achieve ? Complete compliance with fantasy or a future better society?

@Mcfluwster ...makes more sense to me.

@FrostyJim Interesting information, What it says may be true . That which I am really interested in during this posting is :

Did someone say "I can influence these people to believe in any god by the power of my speaking alone if at the same time I prevent them from thinking for themselves. Then I will, as their leader, gain more power than I would need , forever."

@Mcfluwster -

Death was always too easy an option.

"IN Wells's view the idea that life could be much better if we are all tolerant and kind, was just too advanced for the age.|

Is it still too advanced now?
How do we alter it to make it acceptable"

@Mcfluwster At the bottom of that, is the old nature or nurture question. Are we, as we are, because accidents of history created cultures which conditioned us to behave as we do ? Or does the origins of our ways and customs stem from evolved genetics, genetic determinism ?

My short answer would be, yes, we can change, because the worlds many and very different cultures prove, that at least humans can adapt their ways widely.

But having said that, I must then need add. That personally, I have aways found the nature v. nurture argument, to be a primitive and stupid one, no both sides. Since it seems to me plain, that the human condition must be a result of complex interactions between the two. Not least because, why would human culture exist at all, if their was not an already existing complex of human instincts and emotional drives, to compel its creation.

Plus the, either or, debate smacks far too much, of the all too human custom, of looking for easy , lazy and simple answers, rather than, make the effort and take the time required to understand complex things. The outcomes of which is often tragic. In perhaps the best known example, in the mid twentieth century, fascism and communism, went to war, not just literally, but also over the human mind. And as everyone knows the fascist, simplistic belief, that humans could be improved genetically, led to the pointless cruelty of genocide and death camps. While the Soviet belief in cultural conditioning, and the possibility that any required behavior could be produced by, education/brain washing, led of course to, yet more death camps. While neither produced any success.

So I do not come down on any side in the argument, but only say that the human condition is a very complex mixture of both genetic nature, and cultural inheritance. Which will probably only be successfully untangled , by those who are willing to put in a great deal of time and effort into untangling the very real complexities. And I do not think that politicians appealing vainly to the lowest common denominator among the voters, nor the political and financial "elites " trying to defend their own corrupt positions, and advantages , are very likely to have time or inclination to address the problem seriously.

@Fernapple My answer to the Nature vs Nurture argument is now like some answers I have seen that expresses each concept in terms of the percentage NURTURE vs percentage NATURE . I am quite happy with that . There is no consistency implied but as we progress we can be more precise. This is the same way as I can accept god as not existing at the same time as he might exist

@Mcfluwster I am not sure it is just a question of simple percentages, since some things may have much more of a genetic component than others. For example the fact that people hunger and want to eat is purely genetic, yet if I pick up a knife and fork or chop sticks to eat with, is purely cultural. But is the fact that I chose to use a set of tools to eat with, rather than my bare unwashed hands, because I value hygiene a cultural or in part genetic factor ? Since it is to be remembered that revulsion or disgust are proved to be naturally instinctive, and food hygiene customs precede the germ theory of disease, yet many of them are derived from that and follow it.

Regardless of my past beliefs all turned upside down, I think I agree with you. Nothing was said of Jesus in the recorded history of his time. It all came out much later and nothing written of him by anyone who could have possibly known him. Apologists beg to differ but they point out only the others who got on the Jesus band wagon and lived too late to have known him at all. In hindsight it is almost as if Rome said "you wanted this leader who would save you from us but he came and you killed him." Maybe that was a way of keeping them docile. Jesus to the Romans was just another rabble rouser even if he existed, so why write anything about him. Just another crucified man.

@DenoPenno And they crucified a fuck of a lot of them….

See reply to Frosty Jim