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 Lord Tarkin wrote:

 Selym wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
The reason Atheism is no more rational than Theism is because there are still questions it can't answer, meaning that you have to have faith in it to believe it.

Yeah, the 'Techpriest IRL' thread singled out animists.

Just because we don't have all the answers yet does not me we can't make an educated guess, and then work to learn more. Faith holds that either all the answers are known, or that they are not to be known. Atheism is closer to "We have some answers, but we know there is more, so we shall search".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lord Tarkin wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
But the Emperor was Jesus, in the alternate reality that is 40k.

Calm down. Even though they're talking about a name that means something to you, they're not talking about your personal saviour.

Right, the point was completely missed. Jesus cannot be incorporated into 40k because whether you picture Jesus as the Emperor doesn't matter, religious people and athiests will still feel the need to comment on "real" Jesus.

And you know this how? So far a good number of posts have been debating the facts of good ol' Empy, and not really caring too much about Jesus.

Yeah, I know because you JUST posted about atheism.

Which neither quoted nor referred to Jesus. It pointed out a difference between Theism and Atheism.

 Psienesis wrote:
there's nothing in the message of the New Testament that fits with the power-hungry, despotic warlord the Emperor always was.

So, does “quietly manipulating things from the shadows” goes with “despotic warlord”? That is a self contraction. In that many billions years, the Emperor could have changed a lot his ways.
Beside, for all we know… it was not even Jesus that wrote the Bible anyway, how much of it actually comes from him and what he said?

The New Testament is (supposedly) written by the Apostles, who were eye-witnesses to much of what they relate.

However, the Hippy Jesus doesn't really mesh with anything we know of the Emperor... and, yeah, working from the shadows is something many a despot will do on their way up the ladder, getting the pieces in place before they launch their coup.

 Psienesis wrote:
The New Testament is (supposedly) written by the Apostles, who were eye-witnesses to much of what they relate.

However, the Hippy Jesus doesn't really mesh with anything we know of the Emperor... and, yeah, working from the shadows is something many a despot will do on their way up the ladder, getting the pieces in place before they launch their coup.

However, a great deal of the new testament was written significantly post jesus. And a great deal of it is copy paste and name change of older myths and stories. Hell, most of the jesus story is twised like crazy to fit preexisting myth and prophesy.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
The New Testament is (supposedly) written by the Apostles, who were eye-witnesses to much of what they relate.

However, the Hippy Jesus doesn't really mesh with anything we know of the Emperor... and, yeah, working from the shadows is something many a despot will do on their way up the ladder, getting the pieces in place before they launch their coup.

However, a great deal of the new testament was written significantly post jesus. And a great deal of it is copy paste and name change of older myths and stories. Hell, most of the jesus story is twised like crazy to fit preexisting myth and prophesy.

Wasn't the New Testament written something like several hundred years after Jesus kicked it?

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
The New Testament is (supposedly) written by the Apostles, who were eye-witnesses to much of what they relate.

However, the Hippy Jesus doesn't really mesh with anything we know of the Emperor... and, yeah, working from the shadows is something many a despot will do on their way up the ladder, getting the pieces in place before they launch their coup.

However, a great deal of the new testament was written significantly post jesus. And a great deal of it is copy paste and name change of older myths and stories. Hell, most of the jesus story is twised like crazy to fit preexisting myth and prophesy.

Nothing in the Bible is written "as it happened", but for purposes of this discussion, I'm taking it at face value for what it claims. This is not the time or place to debate Biblical veracity.

Maybe he wasn't Jesus, and he just wrote the bible based on his own goals?

 Psienesis wrote:
However, the Hippy Jesus doesn't really mesh with anything we know of the Emperor...

"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword."
-Jesus

And of course the whole "hippy Jesus" thing is really just an attempt to make Christianity look a little better by modern moral standards. The author has Jesus offer a few nice quotes, but the primary message is still "obey me or be tortured for eternity", something the 40k Imperium would agree with entirely.

 Hive Fleet Cerberus wrote:
Maybe he wasn't Jesus, and he just wrote the bible based on his own goals?

it's certinly possiable, ultimatly I doubt GW'll ever provide a firm answer, as that's a bit of a land mine I doubt they wanna risk stepping on. so my advice? choose the answer that best fits your theological thoughts.
Maybe Jesus was the Emperor in diguise?
or Maybe Jesus was one of the Emperor's own sons whom was helping his father, and thus the theological point of Jesus being the God's son is in fact the truth, from a certin point of view.
Or maybe Jesus was all a lie and never existed and the Emperor simply created tales about him to provide an inspirational figure in a religon he created.
All of these answers are as valid as any other for the purposes of 40k. choose whatever explination floats your boat.

Selym wrote:
Just because we don't have all the answers yet does not me we can't make an educated guess, and then work to learn more. Faith holds that either all the answers are known, or that they are not to be known. Atheism is closer to "We have some answers, but we know there is more, so we shall search".

That's not true at all. Faith doesn't have to hold all the answers. Faith is about believing what you cannot prove.

Atheism requires just as much faith as any given theist doctrine, because you cannot disprove god with what is currently known.

Atheists hold the belief that there is no God/Allah/g-d/Izanagi-omikami, or whoever. That is what defines atheism - the belief that there are no gods.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
However, the Hippy Jesus doesn't really mesh with anything we know of the Emperor...

"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword."
-Jesus

And of course the whole "hippy Jesus" thing is really just an attempt to make Christianity look a little better by modern moral standards. The author has Jesus offer a few nice quotes, but the primary message is still "obey me or be tortured for eternity", something the 40k Imperium would agree with entirely.

Indeed. And furthermore, there is no reason to think the Emperor had his master plan down right from the beginning. He was also supposed to have been Ghengis Khan and Alexander the Great. It's possible he was merely guiding mankind and the development of civilization, but I also like to think he did these "test runs" to try out his theories and get some practical learning experience.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Atheism requires just as much faith as any given theist doctrine, because you cannot disprove god with what is currently known.

Except that's a poor definition of faith because under that definition every belief requires faith and therefore saying "X requires faith" is a meaningless statement. Atheism requires the same amount of faith that the belief that I am not the 40k Emperor requires: very, very little. The evidence overwhelmingly favors both beliefs, and the "faith" required is simply rounding the 99.999999999999999999999% confidence to 100% for everyday purposes and not obsessing over the incredibly tiny chance that I might be wrong. And no sensible person would ever talk about how much faith I'm displaying by rejecting the possibility that I am the Emperor and failing to start building my army of space marines. Meanwhile belief in god requires tremendous amounts of faith to believe in something without even the slightest bit of evidence.

So, a better definition of faith would be "belief in something with a level of confidence that is not justified by the evidence for the belief", since that actually separates things into categories of "faith" and "not faith". So, belief in god requires faith, atheism does not.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

Selym wrote:
Just because we don't have all the answers yet does not me we can't make an educated guess, and then work to learn more. Faith holds that either all the answers are known, or that they are not to be known. Atheism is closer to "We have some answers, but we know there is more, so we shall search".

That's not true at all. Faith doesn't have to hold all the answers. Faith is about believing what you cannot prove.

Atheism requires just as much faith as any given theist doctrine, because you cannot disprove god with what is currently known.

Atheists hold the belief that there is no God/Allah/g-d/Izanagi-omikami, or whoever. That is what defines atheism - the belief that there are no gods.

Atheism does not require any faith, it simply is based on the logical principle of a lack of any verifiable evidence. Religion only exists because of ancient hearsay and cannot be proven beyond that point. Also, atheism is more or less the default state of mind for purely logical thought, as it's up to religion to prove the points it has claimed, not for science to disprove them, as you cannot prove a negative. See Russell's Teapot. You cannot prove that there is not a teapot orbiting the sun, thus meaning it must be true and those that argue against its existence are obviously arguing from a point of belief, and not logic.The burden of proof lies on theists, not atheists.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Atheism requires just as much faith as any given theist doctrine, because you cannot disprove god with what is currently known.

Except that's a poor definition of faith because under that definition every belief requires faith and therefore saying "X requires faith" is a meaningless statement. Atheism requires the same amount of faith that the belief that I am not the 40k Emperor requires: very, very little. The evidence overwhelmingly favors both beliefs, and the "faith" required is simply rounding the 99.999999999999999999999% confidence to 100% for everyday purposes and not obsessing over the incredibly tiny chance that I might be wrong. And no sensible person would ever talk about how much faith I'm displaying by rejecting the possibility that I am the Emperor and failing to start building my army of space marines. Meanwhile belief in god requires tremendous amounts of faith to believe in something without even the slightest bit of evidence.

So, a better definition of faith would be "belief in something with a level of confidence that is not justified by the evidence for the belief", since that actually separates things into categories of "faith" and "not faith". So, belief in god requires faith, atheism does not.

You could do well as a promoter of intelligent design, Peregrine, since much like God in a literal interpretation of the beginning of Genesis, you've pulled statistics you made up (how many 9's after that decimal point?) out of absolutely nowhere in an attempt to look smart and impressive. People rejected germ theory with a whole lot of certainty at one point too, because they had no evidence for it (and this was before they had observed germs, so you can't argue that there was evidence if they didn't have access to it.). To paraphrase Einstein (smarter than you), mankind doesn't know one tenth of one percent of anything. That's not an argument for or against God or religion. That's not the point. Everyone, this is about whether the Emperor, in the ENTIRELY FICTIONAL universe of Warhammer 40k was Jesus. Save the smug religion/atheism debate crap for the general discussion board or another forum.

As for the original question, Jesus was described as a very normal looking fellow, while the Emperor is a towering specimen of physical perfection. I guess he could have been disguising his appearance with psychic glamour. If the Emperor WAS Jesus, he would have had to have changed so much in the time between now and back then that it hardly even matters. The Emp wasn't a big "turn the other cheek" kind of guy. In fact, it'd be pretty hard to have teachings with LESS in common than the Emp and Jesus. Of course, normal people get wiser when they change their beliefs, but the big E clearly didn't. I don't think I've made any secret of the fact that I find the Emp as portrayed in the HH books a largely loathsome Ubermensch who holds the Idiot Ball often.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
That's not true at all. Faith doesn't have to hold all the answers. Faith is about believing what you cannot prove.

Atheism requires just as much faith as any given theist doctrine, because you cannot disprove god with what is currently known.

Atheists hold the belief that there is no God/Allah/g-d/Izanagi-omikami, or whoever. That is what defines atheism - the belief that there are no gods.

Please take that discussion to PM or Off-Topic or anywhere else. I would be glad to participate in it, but here is not the place.
(And if it is in Off-Topic, I will not be able to participate )

 Psienesis wrote:


Ironic, isn't it, that the Emperor would later go on to found his own Inquisition by his own word, giving them more authority than the medieval Inquisition could ever dream of?

worth repeating an emphasizing.

reminds me of what Gk Chesterton wrote , " “The State did not own men so entirely, even when it could send them to the stake, as it sometimes does now where it can send them to the elementary school.”


Was the Emperor Jesus ?
Hmm,
Was the Emperor a materialist secularist who, for example, happily builds genocidal-suicidal weapons for the sake of.........for the sake of.........well, he asserts he doesn't believe in final or ultimate ends. A fancy way of saying that he believes " He who dies with the most toys wins " , a fancy way of saying he has no reason at all for doing so, not even a bad reason. ( " Not even a bad reason " in the old days was called malice, or simply evil. Today it is called Psychosis in poor people, called reason and logic if the people are affluent. )
Are the Necrons pure materialists ? Are the Tyranids Darwinists ?

If 40k fluff is ever a guise to explore real life issues, I actually tend to think then it is casting contemporary conventional wisdom in a bad light , and not old school religions.

Humanism ? -- If the Emperor is a false god he is an absolutely despicable character. Only the FICTION of the God is in any way attractive or virtuous. Corrupt clerics are "corrupt " how ? Because they conform to religiosity ? No, because they conform very well to materialism and Social Darwinist doggerel .

Science and Technology ? --- The Imperium is light years ahead of the 21st century in this regard, but it didn't usher in utopia. The general run of humanity, even the ruling class, is as miserable as it ever was. The Necrons are light years ahead of the Imperium and even more miserable.

I dunno, maybe Games Workshop is secretly owned by Jerry Falwell.

After ''The last church'' story I don't believe he was Jesus. Now what if Jesus was an early psyker?