Robert M. Price Quotes

Quotes about:

Atheism Belief Christ Jesus Miracles Religion

Whatever can be threatened, whatever can be shaken, whatever you fear cannot stand, is destined to crash. Do not go down with the ship. Let that which is destined to become the past slip away. Believe that the real you is that which beckons from the future. If it is a sadder you, it will be a wiser one. And dawn will follow the darkness sooner or later. Rebirth can never come without death.

Robert M. Price

Real, Believe, Past

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In broad outline and in detail, the life of Jesus as portrayed in the gospels corresponds to the worldwide Mythic Hero Archetype in which a divine hero's birth is supernaturally predicted and conceived, the infant hero escapes attempts to kill him, demonstrates his precocious wisdom already as a child, receives a divine commission, defeats demons, wins acclaim, is hailed as king, then betrayed, losing popular favor, executed, often on a hilltop, and is vindicated and taken up to heaven.

Robert M. Price

Jesus, Kings, Children

Opening Statement on Mars Hill Forum at Unitarian Church, Monclair, New Jersey, www.mars-hill-forum.com. January 11, 1997.

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Who needs Satan when you have a God like this?

Robert M. Price

Atheist, Needs, Satan

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The Holy Bible. Promoting ignorance and superstition for nearly 2000 years.

Robert M. Price

Ignorance, Years, Superstitions

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Real morality is not the product of fearing a spanking. But what does fundamentalist hell-belief encourage? It retards any developing moral judgment by freezing moral maturity right at the most primitive, most childish, stage: the fear of retribution-and fundamentalism threatens one hell of a spanking.

Robert M. Price

Real, Maturity, Doe

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The piety of "having a personal relationship with Christ" ... is alien to the New Testament... but evangelicals elevate it to the shibboleth of salvation! Unless you have a personal relationship with Jesus, buster, one day you will be boiling in Hell. Sheesh! Talk about the fury of a personal savior scorned!

Robert M. Price

Jesus, Atheism, One Day

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It is quite likely ... that the central figure of the gospels is not based on any historical individual. Put simply, not only is the theological "Christ of faith" a synthetic construct of theologians, a symbolic "Uncle Sam" figure, but if you could travel ... back to First-Century Nazareth, you would not find a Jesus living there.

Robert M. Price

Jesus, Uncles, Historical

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The born-again gospel promises joy and peace of mind, but it does so by prolonging childhood.

Robert M. Price

Childhood, Joy, Promise

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Fundamentalism fills you with answers before you even think to ask the questions.

Robert M. Price

Thinking, Answers, Asks

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"You ask me how I know he lives?" asks the revival chorus. "He lives within my heart." Exactly! A figment.

Robert M. Price

Heart, Atheism, Revival

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The notorious tendency of conservative apologists and New Age paperback writers alike is to leap from mere possibility to the right to believe. "If there might be space aliens, we can assume there are." "If the idea of Atlantis is not impossible, we can take it for granted." "If the traditional view of gospel authorship cannot be definitievely debunked, we can go right on assuming it's truth." No, you can't.

Robert M. Price

Believe, Views, Ideas

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Speculation is not knowledge.

Robert M. Price

Religion, Speculation

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By itself, 1 Corinthians 15 just wouldn't mean much. He wants the appearances of 1 Corinthians 15:3-11 to be read as if they had in parentheses after them 'See Luke 24; Matthew 28; John 21.'

Robert M. Price

Mean, Religion, Want

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Today's Politically Correct "historical Jesuses" are no different, being mere clones of the scholars who design them.

Robert M. Price

Jesus, Design, Historical

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It is very hard not to see extensive and basic similarities between these (Pagan) religions and the Christian Religion. But somehow Christian scholars have managed not to see it, and this, one must suspect, for dogmatic reasons.

Robert M. Price

Christian, Pagan, Reason

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Does it take a blanket presupposition for a historian to discount some miracle stories as legendary? No, because, as even Bultmann recognized, there is no problem accepting reports even of extraordinary things that we can still verify as occurring today, like faith healings and exorcisms. However you may wish to account for them, you can go to certain meetings and see scenes somewhat resembling those in the gospels. So it is by no means a matter of rejecting all miracle stories on principle. Biblical critics are not like the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal.

Robert M. Price

Healing, Mean, Biblical

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One can believe God capable of anything without believing that he did everything anybody may say he did. One can believe in the possibility of miracles without believing that every reported miracle must in fact have happened.

Robert M. Price

Believe, Miracle, Religion

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Though [Charles Guignebert] could not accept either the Christ myth theory, which held that no historical Jesus existed, or the Dutch Radical denial that Paul authored any of the epistles, Guignebert took both quite seriously.

Robert M. Price

Jesus, Historical, Denial

"The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief". Book by Tom Flynn, 2007.

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For the believer in divine creation, the open question of the Mystery of Being is like an open wound. It stings and gapes, and the believer cannot rest till it be healed up, closed up, smeared with the soothing balm of an answer, even if his doctrine be a sophisticated one like Aquinas's or that of the latest Liberal Protestant theologian.

Robert M. Price

Doctrine, Answers, Mystery

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My point is, however, that churches do promote beliefs that would more appropriately find a place in a context of intellectual debate. They wind up cheerleading for highly dubious opinions on historical, scientific, and metaphysical matters, simply on the bases of emotional preference and the inertia of tradition. They demand conformity to these beliefs, and if you cannot swim with the current, then, well partner, maybe you'd be happier in another pool, another lake in fact, the one ablaze with burning sulfur.

Robert M. Price

Cheerleading, Emotional, Wind

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A critic may reject some miracle stories as legendary, and not others, with no inconsistency at all for the simple reason that even if one holds miracles to be possible, one need not hold legends to be impossible! There are other factors, literary and historiographical ones, that might lead a critic to conclude that even though miracles can happen, it does not appear that in this or that case they did.

Robert M. Price

Simple, Miracle, Religion

Robert M. Price (2008). “Beyond Born Again: Toward Evangelical Maturity”, p.116, Wildside Press LLC

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What suggests to non-Evangelical scholars that the resurrection narratives contain legendary accounts? First there is a variety of apparent contradictions in the stories which in any ancient narrative would have to arouse the historian's suspicion.

Robert M. Price

Religion, Stories, Narrative

Robert M. Price (2008). “Beyond Born Again: Toward Evangelical Maturity”, p.75, Wildside Press LLC

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I wonder how appropriate it is to try to 'argue someone into the kingdom.' Many apologists hotly deny any such charge, but I don't believe them. The tenor of almost all apologetics literature makes it plain that this is their intent.

Robert M. Price

Believe, Religion, Trying

Robert M. Price (2008). “Beyond Born Again: Toward Evangelical Maturity”, p.63, Wildside Press LLC

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If, when we compare two versions of a story, the second known to be a retelling of the first, and find that the second has more of a miraculous element, we may reasonably conclude we have legendary (or midrashic or whatever) embellishment. The tale has grown in the telling. This sort of comparison is common in extrabiblical research and no one holds that it cannot properly indicate legend formation there.

Robert M. Price

Two, Religion, Atheism

Robert M. Price (2008). “Beyond Born Again: Toward Evangelical Maturity”, p.117, Wildside Press LLC

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But if they did really refer to some kind of a "personal relationship," it would in effect be a case of channeling. I suspect this is why fundamentalists who condemn New Age channelers do not dismiss it as a fraud..., but instead think that Ramtha and the others are channeling demons. If they said it was sheer delusion, they know where the other four fingers would wind up pointing!

Robert M. Price

Thinking, Wind, Age

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Born: July 7, 1954
Occupation: Writer
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