Dead Racists Society

I've heard of The God Who Wasn't There, and recently ran across its website. As far as I understand, it basically attempts to prove that there was no historical Jesus, and that the biblical Jesus was just a pastiche of other religions. Having not seen it, I can't comment, but the clips available on its website aren't terribly encouraging.

The Earth & The Sun is from the beginning of the film, and simply says "Christianity was wrong when it said that the Sun revolved around the Earth; what if they're wrong about their entire religion, too?" I don't think I have to explain what's stupid about that.

The Rapture doesn't even have anything to do with the question of whether Jesus was real. It's just talking about how many people believe the world will end in their lifetime, saying "Isn't it scary that people believe this? Believing the world will end in twenty years doesn't make good incentive for good long-term planning." Which is true, but hardly has anything to do with the supposed thesis of the movie.

Did Jesus Begin as a Myth? questions the accuracy of what we 'know' of the historical Jesus. A member of the Jesus Seminar cites things that make him skeptical--a council of Jews meeting on Passover Eve, Pontius Pilate releasing a known killer instead of a man he'd tried to get off the hook. Being a mathematician, I prefer more concrete things--perhaps if he'd said "There's no record of a Josh being executed by Pontius Pilate" (did Romans keep records like that? I'd imagine so). He did say something interesting, though, about contemporary contradictory beliefs regarding Josh's death:

And then when you realize, "Well, y'know, there were other ancient Jews and Jewish Christians that believed Jesus had been killed a century before, under King Alexander Genias [?]... o-or in the Gospel of Peter it says that Herod had Jesus killed." Well, what--how could this be, uh, a matter of-of such diversity if it was a recent event that people remembered? I-It just begins to make you wonder, "Is this man really part of the historical timestream, or does it--doesn't it begin to look like someone has tried to put, uh, a-a figure, originally mythical, into a historical framework, and made various stabs at it?"

Unfortunately, since he doesn't cite any of these other "ancient Jews and Jewish Christians", and I don't even know who this Alexander is, I'm not really sure what to say.

The Christs Before Christ is the most interesting, as it takes a brief look at the figures that predated Josh but might have been inspiration for some of the legends surrounding him:

The early Church fathers understood this was a problem because they were already getting the same objections from pagans. They said, "What you say about Jesus we've been saying about Dionysus and Hercules all the time, what's the big deal?" And they didn't believe in them either anymore. And so the Christian apologists, the defenders of the faith, would say "Well, yeah, but this one is true. And, uh, y'see, Satan counterfeited it in advance cause he knew this day would come.

At this point, instead of bad animation or the guy talking the screen shows the words:

"For when they say that Dionysus arose again and ascended to heaven, is it not evident the devil has imitated the prophecy?"
-Justin Martyr, church father

He continues talking:

Boy, I tell ya... that tells you two right there: that even they didn't deny that these other Jesus-like characters were before Jesus, or they never would have resorted to something like that--'Satan knew it would happen and counterfeited it in advance'?"

Finally the person who made the DVD (I assume) has his voice-over:

In case you're wondering... yes, this remains the explanation to this day.

And then it goes on to mock the ignorance of random Christians in the street by ambushing them with "Do you know about Osiris or Dionysus or Mithras?"

Well, I thought some of that was fairly interesting, but on the whole not terribly substantial.