Categories or Degrees of Existence (Agnosticism)

by dhw, Thursday, February 18, 2010, 23:13 (5391 days ago) @ George Jelliss

PART TWO-GEORGE: Even in the objective world there are arguably degrees of existence depending on the amount and certainty of evidence backing them up. For instance historical and legendary characters or events. There is a sense in which the past fades away as evidence and memory is eroded by time. -It's insights like this that warm my heart, because in a few words George has encapsulated one of the great problem areas of human culture: memory. Before writing was invented, humans relied on oral tradition for stories to be handed down, and by the time the stories were written, who knows how many embellishments they'd undergone? David has pointed out that the gospels were written long after Christ's death. No-one knows exactly when ... I've read that it was between 60 and 100 AD, though Christians try to make it as early as possible! These are not first-hand accounts, and they are not based on authenticated evidence, and may even in part be based on each other. Josephus's two brief mentions of Christ are also highly suspect. I'm not saying Christ didn't exist, but how can we possibly know which stories are true? Let me offer you some titbits from Jan Assmann's monumental work on memory (not yet published in English), drawing here on Maurice Halbwachs: "Christian topography is pure fiction. The holy sites do not commemorate facts attested to by contemporary witnesses, but they represent ideas of faith whose roots were sunk there long after the events." "When Paul came on the scene...the focus of memory shifted from Galilee to Jerusalem. Here there are absolutely no 'authentic memories', because the trial and execution of Christ took place in the absence of the disciples." "The new idea, made binding by the Council of Nicea [325 AD], was that Jesus as the Son of God died to redeem the sins of mankind. This took on the status of memory, and became a memory figure as the story of the Passion." And it's not just Christian "history" that becomes a blur. The Exodus is absolutely central to Judaism, but its historicity is also a matter of great controversy. -Under "Refutation"...17 February at 18.42 (but do please put future posts on this thread), Matt says he can't recall many cases where "such a rich mythology was built round person(s) who didn't exist at all." When Christians read that Christ was born of a virgin in a manger, they probably regard that as history; but are they equally impressed when they hear that the Lord Krishna was born in a dungeon that shone with a mysterious light, or that my Dogon friends Amma and Nommo came out of an enormous egg, or that Minerva sprang fully armoured from the brain of Jupiter? All of these are associated with a rich mythology.-We can't even kid ourselves that modern history is objective. It's constantly been rewritten, and the more powerful the ruler(s), the less reliable the history. And so we finish with the same question as before: is it possible to separate subjective perception and/or interpretation from the objective world? The past fades away as evidence, and memory is eroded by time...(I'm only repeating this because I like it so much)...and human culture, like everything else in the history of our world from its very beginnings, becomes shrouded in mystery. Thank you, George.