Ex-Christian debate bro Derek Lambert is the content-creator behind the YouTube channel MythVision. I linked to it before, including a shocking presentation on human sacrifice in the Old Testament (hint: Yahweh was into it, too).
In this presentation, Derek discusses the similarities between the Gospels and various ancient myths and legends (complete with made up eye-witnesses of heavenly ascensions). He reaches the conclusion that the Jesus stories as recorded in the four Gospels are indeed myths. Jesus may have been a real historical person, but his life has been heavily overlain by mythologemes.
No surprise there, I suppose. The main point of the presentation is that Christian apologetics are based on special pleading: in the case of Jesus, the myths must be actual historical events, while nobody takes the pagan stories seriously. Did Augustus ascend to heaven? Did Julius Caesar appear on Roman roads long after his death? Could Vespasian heal the sick? When the Cynic philosopher Peregrinus Proteus burned himself alive on a funeral pyre, did his soul really leave the body in the form of a fiery phoenix, while an earthquake shook the surroundings?
Some of the arguments Derek responds to are somewhat strange, like the idea that atheists should regard the sinking of "Titanic" as mythological, since a novel published 14 years earlier contain eerie parallels to the real event. Eh?
Derek also mentions his own spiritual journey through various fundamentalist Christian denominations, Preterism and Hyper-Preterism, and atheist Jesus Mythicism (he mentions "Zeitgeist"). Not sure if this video contains any really new information for those versed in this apparently never-ending debate, but I suppose it could be of some interest on a rainy afternoon...
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