Did Jesus Actually Exist?

You seem to truly lack reasoning skills. This stupid brouhaha of yours begins when i told you i didn't want to converse with someone who uses the term "Jap." It is at the least a disobliging term, and is most commonly used as a racist term. That is not making a judgement about an entire nation nor a people, it was just a remark to you. You chose to claim that it is warranted because of usage. I then asked you if you accept chink, or n*gger on the same basis. I not you haven't answered that question. I imputed nothing--you perhaps need to look the word up. I reacted to what you actully said, and attempted to defend. I was pointing out that you were quoting Mr. Dower to attempt to support a claim that the Japanese were contemptuous of the Americans as a military opponent. If you actually were as bright as you make yourself out to be, you'd know that it doesn't matter what the Japanese people thought of the United States, only what those Japanese who were decision makers thought. You are also burdened with a shallow understanding of the Japanese (and probably just about any other historical topic). Yamamoto understood the danger of attacking the United States. He also was thoroughly imbued with the concept of honor in Japanese culture. That he didn't agree with the policy had nothing to do with him doing his duty. He would do his best, and so he planned the attack on Hawaii. The IGS intended to invade the island of Luzon. They planned to overrun it in five weeks. Yamamoto knew that the Pacific Fleet could steam from their home base in San Diego in three weeks, tops. (Of course, then the Pacific Fleet's home base was moved to Hawaii, the timing became ever more important.) So, to do his duty and support the Southern Operation, he had to neutralize the American Pacific Fleet. In November, 1940, aircraft of the Royal Navy attacked the main Italian naval base at Taranto. It was a poorly planned, spur of the moment operation. It used outmoded, two-seater, open cockpit biplanes to launch torpedo attacks, at night. For all of the flaws of the operation, they managed to sink one Italian battleship, and damage two others. The event sent shock waves through naval staffs all over the world. Yamamoto ordered his chief of staff to begin planning for an attack on Hawaii. (An attack on San Diego, was, of course, not practicable.) When Lt. Commander Genda returned to Japan in January, 1941, he was made Yamamoto's planning officer and began the detailed planning of the attack.

It didn't matter what anyone's personal opinion might be. All Japanese officers were expected to do their duty to the best of their ability, or resign. Having embarked on the idiotic war in 1937, none of them could have backed down without admitting defeat, something their cultural values would never have allowed them to do. The other key factor here is it didn't matter what Japanese public opinion toward the Americans, or anyone else, might have been. The only opinions which mattered with those of the responsible military officres, and the opinion of the Emperor. No one even consulted public opinion at that time.

You really suck at debate, you know?

I didn't employ a straw man fallacy, dipshit. You were bleating about Japanese racism. Defending your own racism by referring to Japanese racism is a tu quoque fallacy, whether you're bright enough to know it or not.

Your remarks about why the Japanese attacked the United States are are completely clueless. They are shallow and ill-informed. When Yamamoto finally told the Imperial Navy staff that he intended to attack the United States Navy in Hawaii, they were appalled. When IGS learned of the plan, they were just as appalled. But Yamamoto, with far more diplomacy that you are capable of, basically told them that any plan which included attacking the Philippines would bring war with the United States, and it would bring war "to the knife." Sadly, the excellent plan of Genda and Fuchida, carried into execution by highly trained and motivated air crew, served to delude many members of the IGS that they actually had a shot at winning the war. They were as clueless as you show yourself to be.

Heh. your original claim was:



And how, pray-tell, did they "answer his demands?" Was it simply by telling him that it was better to be slaughtered, and thereby defeated, than to "admit" defeat? That's what you're suggesting:



If you're going to ascribe that kind of stupidity to the Japanese, then I might have to wonder just how "racist" you must be.

Yamamoto was one man. His opinion did not prevail. But he was not, as you seem to want to fallaciously suggest, "representative" of Hirohito's advisors in this matter.

I won't even try to address all the other non sequiturs you appealed to in that last long-ass post.

No, i haven't suggested that. Here we have more evidence that you suck at debate. I did not for a moment suggest that Yamamoto was representative of the Japanese officer class. He was, however, the senior Japanese admiral afloat, which automatically made him the equivalent of the American CNO. The only way to get around Yamamoto would have been to force him to resign, and he was far too popular in the ranks of naval officers for that. Additionally, he was right. If you are going to go to war with the United States in such a situation (an inevitable result of any attack on the Philippines), then taking out the Pacific Fleet, or the major combat elements thereof is crucially important. The IGS wan't going to abandon the Southern Operation, so they had little choice but to agree to the Yamamoto plan. In fact, his prestige in military circles was so high, that despite their fear that there would not be enough carriers to support their other operations, both the Imperial Navy staff and the IGS agree to the formation of the new First Air Fleet, which included Japan's largest six carriers (all of her heavy carriers). Yamamoto's opinion did prevail. Once again, you don't know enough to be in this discussion. And, of course, you really suck at debate.

EDIT: To understand how the minds of Japanese military officers worked is not to ascribe stupidity to them. You're the one with the racist attitudes toward the Japanese, don't try to sluff that off onto me.

I know your type. The know-it-alls who specialize in "winning" debates by insulting their opponents then declaring victory. I really don't want to take the time for that kind of bullshit right now.

Carry on with your pompous, self-deluding tactics. It's evident you find great comfort in them, but they really don't merit a response, sorry.

For those who may care:

According to historian Thomas Hughes, in an article written for the Encyclopedia Britannica, even Yamamoto held the American military in low regard due to it's "character flaws:"



He further asserts that Yamamoto did not discourage, but rather encouraged, an attack on the U.S.



http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/651516/Yamamoto-Isoroku

Of course I don't believe it happened. My point was that it would be so amazing of a feat that surely if it really happened scribes would be recording it but none did. It took 40 years before anything was written about these events.

The over all point is it doesn't make any sense that no one would record these remarkable events that supposedly happened for 40 years.

So i don't merit a response, but you continue to post. I disagree with your Mr. Hughes, the more so as his claims appear to be ipse dixit in nature. My opinion of Yamamoto's attitude has, at least, the merit of being based on his correspondence. Mr. Hughes, apparently, expects us to believe him just because he says so. Not to worry, though, you flannel-mouthed bullshit artist, you needn't respond because i don't merit it. Ah-hahahahahahahahahahaha . . .

In the memoirs of Prince Ayamaro Konoye, Prime Minister of Japan from June, 1937 to January, 1939 and from July, 1940 to October, 1941, he quotes Yamamoto saying:

"I can run wild for six months … after that, I have no expectation of success"

Source: Fumimaro Konoe, Konoye Ayamaro Ko Shuki (Memoirs of Prince Ayamaro Konoye), Asahi Shimbun-sha, 1946, p. 3.

There was, of course, Yamamoto's statement that Japan qould only win when they dictated terms in the White House:

"Should hostilities once break out between Japan and the United States, it is not enough that we take Guam and the Philippines, nor even Hawaii and San Francisco. To make victory certain, we would have to march into Washington and dictate the terms of peace in the White House. I wonder if our politicians, among whom armchair arguments about war are being glibly bandied about in the name of state politics, have confidence as to the final outcome and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices."

As quoted in At Dawn We Slept (1981) by Gordon W. Prange, p. 11; this quote was stated in a letter to Ryoichi Sasakawa prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Minus the last sentence, it was taken out of context and interpreted in the U.S. as a boast that Japan would conquer the entire contiguous United States. The omitted sentence showed Yamamoto's counsel of caution towards a war that would cost Japan dearly.

I think your Mr. Hughes is just as big a bullshit artist as you appear to be. Many people who claim to be historians, though, get notoriety by taking dissident positions. Defending them, though, is just as difficult as any other part of historiography.

Nobody knows for a fact that there wasn't an earlier account of Jesus' sayings than the gospels. We know only of what has been preserved and handed on to next generations, but a humongous amount of written stuff has disappeared in the dustbins of history.

A cop out. Not only are there unrelated works during the supposed time the events took place but there are also unrelated works before these events. I find it suspect that there is only ONE source that survived? Really? For something that was suppose to be so important only ONE source remained? Surely there would have to of been at least ONE source that survived other than the gospels. But NOPE none. So you can't say these other sources didn't survive and that is why we don't have them. It is too unlikely given their "importance".

No, not really... Dozens of accounts have survived. You'd know that if you cared enough to read my posts, since I explained that only two posts ago...

There are NOT multiple sources. There is ONLY one.

The gospels are all different. Just because they were bound into one book does not mean they are one source. And there are many other gospels than the 4 most people know about. Some of the apocryph gospels have historical significance, such as Thomas'. And there are the Jewish and Roman authors I listed, who come from totally different perspectives. So there ARE many different sources. That is a FACT, whether you understand it or not.

Seems like a tweener. In one sense, there's only the NT as a source. But in another sense, research overwhelmingly suggests that the Gospels are a cobbled-together mish-mash from a variety of sources. The Q-source, for instance, seems to have informed them all to varying extents.

Over and beyond the NT (which is composed of many different books and letters, and thus is not in fact one source but several), there's also Josephus who clearly referenced our dude, Suetonius and Tacitus who described Christian communities in their time and the "Chrestus" they worshiped, and then there's the Talmud which has its own anti-gospels.

The idea that there is only one source is as ridiculous as the idea that the earth is flat.

The idea that there is only one source is as ridiculous as the idea that the earth is flat.

Not to someone who has his/her mind as tightly sealed as Krumple!

The problem with arguing with Setanta is that he is not always wrong.

Now you are conflating my argument. The sources you are referring to are the ones that came about 40+ years AFTER the events supposed to have taken place. I am talking about writers who should have written DURING the events or shortly there after. They don't exist.

Sure, Neo, he's a bright guy. But, whatever you do, don't EVER try telling him that he is not ALWAYS RIGHT.