Do you believe Jesus Christ existed historically?

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Do you believe Jesus Christ existed historically?

I just asked this same question on Yahoo Answers and I wanted to share it here as well if I may:

I think Jesus Christ most likely did exist, but he was not however, the son of God (Because I don't believe in any God in the first place) nor was he born of a virgin on December 25th. I don't believe he performed miracles and he did not rise three days later after his death, or ascend into a place called heaven. I believe Jesus was a political leader who let things get out of control and after he was killed by the Roman Empire, his followers made him out to be something he wasn't and the legend continued to grow and still does to this day. Most myths have a grain of truth, and the whole kebab about his divinity is a classic example of the gossip/urban legend in a small town.


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I don't believe he ever

I don't believe he ever existed - see the Jesus Mythicist forum for reasons why.


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Quote:Do you believe Jesus

Quote:
Do you believe Jesus Christ existed historically?
no


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I ask the same question

I ask the same question about the most famous Buddha. It actually makes no difference to many of us atheists / pantheists etc, regarding their personal existence. The stories exist, written by many, which is simply a look into how we think and interact. I don't see a first person source of the icons of religious texts.

The historical existence of the ancient icons of religious texts is debated a lot here at RRS and else where, but I find it personally meaningless. So what if there was a jesus dude? ... There was certainly  no jesus as described in the bible summary nor any found in history.  

Was there a Nietzsche, Sartre, Einstein, Russell, Sagan, so on and so on, yes, but back in time, a jesus dude ? Will we ever know? I doubt it, but hey yeah, there were wise ones in the ancient past. That much is obvious.

Yeah, people invent myth folklore, but it's all connected with a few seemingly newish "seeds" along the path of our human history.

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I tend to agree with Zeeboe

I tend to agree with Zeeboe on this. I suspect that at one time, there was a real live person on whom the Jesus myth is based. However, we know very little about that actual live character. Most of the myth is obtained from other sources. The virgin birth, as we all know, comes from Isis/Horus and other pagan religions. The Resurrection, from Isis/Osiris.

Some of the content of the Sermon on the Mount is also from pagan origin (Jesus’ concept of the afterlife in particular), but much of it is not. True, much of it is rehashed Jewish theology, and some of it is altered stoic philosophy, but there are a couple of things in there that actually sound original. The Beatitudes, for example, I believe are original. So, that possibly means there was someone around at the time preaching such things. Perhaps this person eventually served as inspiration for the myth that has since come down to us. Another possibility is that there were a number of individuals who contributed to the myth, and “Jesus” is really a conglomeration of some of the more popular prophets of the time. 

 

-Miguel


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I find the evidence for a

I find the evidence for a historical Jesus very uncompelling.  That's not to say I believe there wasn't one, but that given the evidence, it doesn't seem likely.

We must also ask a very pointed question.  Supposing there was a historical person on which the myth was based, what possible place in history can this person fill?  There's no mention of anything approaching a messianic Jesus-like figure for twenty to thirty years after he supposedly lived.  At best, what could he have been?  A rogue cleric?  A crazy homeless guy?

For comparison, would you say that Wonder Woman is a historical character?

By biblical scholar standards, apparently she is.  The thing is, the Wonder Woman comic was based on Elizabeth Holloway Marston.  She was the wife of William Moulton Marston, the comic's creator.  The thing is, Elizabeth didn't have a magic lasso, nor did she have an invisible jet.  She did not come from a magical island of goddesses.  She was a housewife with a pretty strong personality.  That's it.  He liked her personality and strong will, and decided to make a superhero with super doses of that personality.

Let's say that a thousand years from now, people are debating whether Wonder Woman was an actual person, or whether she was just a figment of someone's imagination, made into a neat story.  Based on what we know to be factual right now, would you say that Wonder Woman is a historical figure or a legend?

So, I have to ask, particularly of those who are enamored of modernist theologians who admit the fallability of the Gospels but insist that there must have been someone, no matter how insignificant, behind the myth -- assuming that the stories of magic and godhood are legendary, what's so damned amazing and significant about finding a historical Jesus?

 

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MiguelDeTrevino, Thanks for

MiguelDeTrevino,

Welcome. Thanks for your post. I basically agree. I am an atheist materialist, who digs a lot of the jesus memes. The "Beatitudes" are rather unique, pointing to an individual writer, but who was that dude? As personally unique that writing is, it is still connected in the thread of it's history before, as all words are a linguistic evolution.  The jesus milkshake ....

   So I can, and do say, I am jesus, I am the christ, as YOU, as all is one, so what's the big fucking deal you idol worshipers, denying you are g-o-d too? 

Get over it, we are condemned to be god, as there is no master other, no separation. Get a grip on your wishful imaginations,  please please .... Science explains, as in thermodynamics, matter / anti- matter, etc etc etc .... The "sum of ONE" ...    

 


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God, def. a single parent

God, def. a single parent who sent his son to earth on a suicide mission.

It is indeterminate. If he existed he was clearly not as described in the gospels as there would have be contemporary mention of a miracle worker who included raising from the dead in his bag of tricks.


To my mind a more interesting question is if he had any connection with Christianity. I say the answer is no. Whether he lived or not he is clearly no more than a hood ornament for a religion unrelated to him. And if he did not exist then we would expect a religion based upon the gospels and epistles but we do not.


Even if the early mentions of the Chrestos refers to Christians they are clearly not Jesusites. Christ only means anointed. Anointing was a common custom in the pagan world. It has no necessary connection to Christianity.


If he were the person in the gospels the religion is clearly not based upon what he said. One has to assume that with a limited amount of time he prioritized what he said, the most important first. If he had wanted priests and a hierarchy he would have said so. The most important teachings of his followers would derive from what he did say and everything he did not say would not be part of the religion.


An obvious example is the admonition to pray in private. Joining the community in church on Sunday is hardly private.

Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.

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Yeah, all religion is

Yeah, all religion is folklore gone wild ....


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Zeeboe wrote:I just

Zeeboe wrote:
I just asked this same question on Yahoo Answers and I wanted to share it here as well if I may:

I think Jesus Christ most likely did exist, but he was not however, the son of God (Because I don't believe in any God in the first place) nor was he born of a virgin on December 25th. I don't believe he performed miracles and he did not rise three days later after his death, or ascend into a place called heaven. I believe Jesus was a political leader who let things get out of control and after he was killed by the Roman Empire, his followers made him out to be something he wasn't and the legend continued to grow and still does to this day. Most myths have a grain of truth, and the whole kebab about his divinity is a classic example of the gossip/urban legend in a small town.

I choose to not believe in anyone or anything until I am presented with compelling evidence to provide support for the claim of its existence.  This evidence in regards to jesus has not as yet presented itself.

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I'm pretty sure there had to

I'm pretty sure there had to be some great mastermind behind the Jesus story. It's not possible to just compile a story of some old myths, that person had put together very profound words. These are so special, that anyone who wrote them, had to believe in their value, the timeless moral story (I mean a stuff like a sermon on the mountain), and had to be idealistic enough to start this work in the first place. When two different people does one thing, it's not the same thing. Common people speaks about their political plans at pub, but the great personalities, good or bad, can actually change the world.

Furthermore, the occurence of spiritual teachers in the history is quite high, they show up less or more regularly here and there, like anomalies in a dull crowd. It's like they would pass a relay baton to each other, running in a really long race across the time. Maybe Mullah Nasreddin didn't exist, (a joke intended) but Jesus, or the person who wrote Jesus did - and reflected an immediate need of that time and place, to reform an old Jewish religion into more civilized standards. Someone had to do it, and I'm sure it was a heresy, in that time, so it couldn't be automatical.

A part of the inconsistency is IMHO caused by censorship. A lot of very meaningful knowledge suddenly found itself in the realm of heretic Christianic sects like Gnostics, some even disappeared totally. And there is one old habit done with heretics. Their name is erased from everywhere possible. Even the people who supports the idea of Jesus' existence, must count with a potential error in his dating, worth a decades into past. Jesus might have been short-haired, dark-skinned student of mystical sects like Esseans or Nazarenes, who tried a political career.

Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.


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Luminon wrote:I'm pretty

Luminon wrote:

I'm pretty sure there had to be some great mastermind behind the Jesus story.

The same masterminds who brought you every piece of ancient literature.  Nothing more.

Quote:
It's not possible to just compile a story of some old myths, that person had put together very profound words.

Yes, profound words the authors took from old myths.

Quote:
These are so special, that anyone who wrote them, had to believe in their value, the timeless moral story (I mean a stuff like a sermon on the mountain),

Which is taken from earlier literature.

Quote:
When two different people does one thing, it's not the same thing.

That's classic.  Seriously.

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No.

No.


Zeeboe
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In 1961, archaeologists

In 1961, archaeologists discovered a plaque fragment at Caesarea Maritima, an ancient Roman city along the Mediterranean coast of Israel. The plaque was written in Latin and imbedded in a section of steps leading to Caesarea’s Amphitheatre. The inscription includes the following: “Pontius Pilatus, Prefect of Judea, has dedicated to the people of Caesarea a temple in honor of Tiberius.” 
 Also, Cornelius Tacitus, a well-known first century Roman historian, also mentioned Pontius Pilate in one if his well-known texts: “Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus…”
 Not only does Tacitus mention Pontius Pilate outside the biblical record, but he mentions him in the historical context of Christ (Christus). So the way I see it is like this...why would the Romans allow the early Christians to feature one of their leaders in their books about Christ if they were telling a fake story? Another note I believe is worth typing: I suspect Jesus was very hated by the Romans and Jewish leaders so I think most of the things that would may have been written about him were destoryed and/or were never written because they may have made it illegal to write anything about him. Also keep in mind that the early Christians used to have to have their meetings in private for fear of being killed, and many of them who were caught were tortured and killed.

 


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I thought it was Suetonius

I thought it was Suetonius and Chrestus first and then Tacitus continued the confusion...

I don't have a problem with a historical rabbi named Jesus claiming he was the Messiah. I have a problem with people claiming that Rabbi is the son of Yahweh described in the bible.

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I hate arguing Christian

I hate arguing Christian history, because it is nothing but an attempt to bog the skeptic down in a distraction, when there still would be no evidence of "POOF" an adult human magically coming from dirt. There is no evidence of how a "spirit" knocks up a girl or how human flesh survives rigor mortis. These are merely ancient myths based on naked assertions people want to believe.

Saying that this place, or that person existed, is irrelevent. George Washington can be proven to exist, but no sane person would claim that he could, in reality, fart a full sized Lamborginni out of his ass. No sane person would believe, because they see the city of New York, in a Superman movie, no sane person would believe that a man can fly like that.

SO, was there a Jesus? Probibly not. It is most likely that a person, or a group of disinfranchised jews decided to make a new myth out of older myths in order to create a new club.

 

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AND what people do not

AND what people do not understand is that people prior to modern monotheism  ALSO attached magic tricks to real people. We can prove those people existed too, but their naked assertions would be just as absurd. So even if we found the body and DNA of a "Jesus" it still would not make walking on water real, or spitting in someone's eye to cure their blindness real.

"God did it" is a naked assertion and no different than any other deity claim in human history.

"Allah did it"

"Ra(sun god of the Egyptians) did it"

All were and some still are believed in just as zealously as any believer today, but STILL no evedence of any, merely all claims.

It makes much more sense that humans sell these ideas because the idea of a super hero protecting them is appealing. It gives them a false sense that they can escape their own mortality.

 

 

 

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 Quote:So even if we found

 

Quote:
So even if we found the body and DNA of a "Jesus" it still would not make walking on water real, or spitting in someone's eye to cure their blindness real.

Then again, if we found Jesus, and he had normal DNA, there might be a problem.  Does God have DNA?  If not, shouldn't Jesus only have half a genome?

But I suppose people who believe in talking snakes wouldn't have any problem reconciling that.  They'd just say, "God made Jesus with a magical full genome because um... he knew we'd discover DNA, and he wanted us to know that Jesus was all man as well as all God."

 

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  Historical Jesus ?  who

  Historical Jesus ?  who knows...even if he did exist, so what ?    David Koresh existed. too and like Jesus, Koresh had followers as well.   Religious kooks will always be with us.  Jesus was just another delusional ego maniac.


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Zeeboe wrote:In 1961,

Zeeboe wrote:

In 1961, archaeologists discovered a plaque fragment at Caesarea Maritima, an ancient Roman city along the Mediterranean coast of Israel. The plaque was written in Latin and imbedded in a section of steps leading to Caesarea’s Amphitheatre. The inscription includes the following: “Pontius Pilatus, Prefect of Judea, has dedicated to the people of Caesarea a temple in honor of Tiberius.”
 Yes, and Egypt had Pharaoh's too.  This does not validate the Exodus story or prove Moses existed.  Darius existed historically, but that does not mean he threw Daniel in the Lions Den, nor does it validate the existence of Daniel.
 
Quote:
Also, Cornelius Tacitus, a well-known first century Roman historian, also mentioned Pontius Pilate in one if his well-known texts: “Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus…”
 Using second century rumors to validate something only known to us from first and second century literature does not help your case.  Nor is it useful.  Using text to validate text is precisely why we laugh at apologists.     
 
Quote:
Not only does Tacitus mention Pontius Pilate outside the biblical record, but he mentions him in the historical context of Christ (Christus).
 Yes, fascinating rumor indeed. So what? 
Quote:
So the way I see it is like this...why would the Romans allow the early Christians to feature one of their leaders in their books about Christ if they were telling a fake story?
 Want to rephrase that into a more reasonable question?  Perhaps what you mean to ask was "why would a second century Roman historian talk about Jesus if he were not historical?"  If that was what you intended to ask (but for some reason didn't), the answer to that question is the same one I would give for Tacitus suggesting that the Jews were expelled from Egypt because they had leprosy.  He was reciting popular rumor in both cases.  In the second century, Jesus had already been accepted as historical by a rising Orthodox idealism in Christians.  Of course, if you knew much about history, you would know that Greeks and Romans did not feel a need to differentiate myth and legend from history.  This is why the famous Parian Marble lists the Amazon invasion, the conquest of Troy, and the journey of the Argo among its historical inscriptions.  
Quote:
Another note I believe is worth typing: I suspect Jesus was very hated by the Romans and Jewish leaders so I think most of the things that would may have been written about him were destoryed and/or were never written because they may have made it illegal to write anything about him.
 Here's an idea!  Let's just speculate on things we're clueless about!  Let's pretend that Paul was gay and Mary was Jesus' wife!  Let's pretend you have studied the subject in any detail!  Let's play with the idea that you have an understanding of ancient history, well enough that you are able to make such deductions!  Hey, speculating is fun! 
Quote:
Also keep in mind that the early Christians used to have to have their meetings in private for fear of being killed, and many of them who were caught were tortured and killed.
 That's a rather silly dogmatic assertion.  How interesting that Acts has Christians openly meeting Paul on his way to Rome in the hands of Roman guards, who did not stop him from staying in their homes.  Christians are so fast to take the incident in Pliny's letters and multiply it across the whole of the Roman Empire and pretend it was for hundreds of years.  Oh, and lets not forget that the authors of hundreds of Christian works were not only Roman citizens, but managed to have access to papyri and ink, were trained in Latin and Greek, and had access to models for which to create plot and narrative.  And somehow this literature was circulated!  Either the Romans were really incompetent, or this whole rumor of persecutions is little more than Christian fiction, like the Gospels.   

 

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Hambydammit wrote: Quote:So

Hambydammit wrote:

 

Quote:
So even if we found the body and DNA of a "Jesus" it still would not make walking on water real, or spitting in someone's eye to cure their blindness real.

Then again, if we found Jesus, and he had normal DNA, there might be a problem.  Does God have DNA?  If not, shouldn't Jesus only have half a genome?

But I suppose people who believe in talking snakes wouldn't have any problem reconciling that.  They'd just say, "God made Jesus with a magical full genome because um... he knew we'd discover DNA, and he wanted us to know that Jesus was all man as well as all God."

 

It never ceases to amaze me that no matter how advanced humans become in the sciences, that somehow it must be because of a magical super hero, and not mundane advance discoveries by ordinary humans.

My computer might as well have it's electrons and 0s and 1s magically manipulated by a hamster in a wheel, and not electricity and human engineering and programing.

When is humanity going to give up on their magical pacifire?

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Who needs a historical Jesus anyway?

True to the agnostic I am, I don't know if there was a historical Jesus, but I know that Paul didn't need one. Not having met a historical Jesus he proceeded to convert people to his new religion.

As to the reports found in classical sources such as Josephus and Tacitus, would you take anything on face value written in a history book produced under the Soviet regime? Tacitus and Josephus were preserved by christian scribes for many centuries. Would you believe that no nuggets of christian faith crept into any of those books copied by those zealous scribes?

Apologetic zeal has reclaimed some of the Testamonium Flavianum, which was earlier thought to have been a complete interpolation, but now one can pick and choose which bits of the passage one can leave out.

The Tacitus witness is tacked onto a long attack on Nero, who was suspected of having started the fire which destroyed much of Rome: this addition shifts the focus off Nero's responsibility for the fire onto the christians who Nero is supposed to have used as scapegoats for the fire. As these christians crispen and crackle into the night having been set on fire, Nero fades and we are left to feel sorry for the naughty christians. Boo-hoo. The only reason why it hasn't been declared a fake is that scholars treat it as sacrosanct, rather than maintain critical aloofness.

The only classical testimony that isn't transparently problematical is the exchange of letters between Pliny the Younger and the emperor Trajan, which deals with how Pliny should treat christians in his province.

The classical testimonies were never useful for modern historical analysis as they are not in any sense primary source materials. Their interest to us lies in the insecurity they display by the necessity writers had to augment the texts to include these testimonies to their faith.

As to the gospels, they were written long after the authentic Pauline letters, so they indicate a christianity long after the time of Paul. He was the first proselytizer spreading the word of his crucified saviour, whose death could justify the faithful. But if this Paul, who received his gospel not from men but through revelation from Jesus, didn't need a historical Jesus, why should anyone else? Smiling

spin

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I believe No...but not with

I believe No...but not with absolute certainty...*if* Jesus did exist, He was a Jew with a ministry whom they fashioned unoriginal stories around, and not any form of divinity.


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This can be debated until

This can be debated until the cows come home, so I will just type (posting for me only) that I still stand by my first statement. I don't know the details, but I think the whole idea of Jesus had to be based off of some real person(s) or event(s).

We'll very unlikely ever know the truth. If Jesus was real and he was killed, I suspect that his body was probably left for the dogs and crows to eat cause those Romans were sicko's and did stuff like that.


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spin,  thanks, I enjoyed

spin,  thanks, I enjoyed your rant.


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Zeeboe wrote:This can be

Zeeboe wrote:

This can be debated until the cows come home, so I will just type (posting for me only) that I still stand by my first statement. I don't know the details, but I think the whole idea of Jesus had to be based off of some real person(s) or event(s).

Based on what evidence?

 

 

People who think there is something they refer to as god don't ask enough questions.


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Because that's how must

Because that's how must urban legends get started. Take the WTC Tourist guy for example. All fake, but he is still a real person who exists and he did visit New York City. Seriously, if you go to snopes.com you'll see that most (not all) of the myths on there did start off as something real. I also think that not everything needs physical evidence to be proven to be true. Sometimes all one needs is to be a good judge of character. Now for another example: I don't know if Peter denying Jesus was an actual event but if it was, I'm sure Jesus did predict it. Not because he is the Son of God who knows everything but because Peter probably did have a lot of love for Jesus and would be concerned for him and follow the guards as they took Jesus away, but Peter probably had a lot of cowardly traits about him and when confronted, he'd turn yellow.

Now then, as most of us know...Christmas is a pagan holiday that the early Christians stole and made it into their own, and then they stole everything about various pagan gods and applied it to their own God, and this is all a matter of personal opinion and just based off of my experiences and observations of the human race and some knowledge I have on history: I don't think the early Christians were smart enough to create their very own character and/or have the idea to forming a false religion without some kind of inspiration behind it. It's been proven that they were already a bunch of thieves who couldn't come up with their own original ideas, holidays, traditions and customs. So why do they now have the smarts to create their character too? Horus was invented because of the sun and Set was invented because of night time.  And I truly believe every fake God had some type of real item or person that inspired people to create those characters because it was a very primitive time back then and people were not nearly as smart as they are today. So in regards of Jesus Christ, I suspect the early Christians figured...."Let's take someone who is already very popular and someone who people were already saying he was the Son of God and let him be the flagship to our religion." Now I know all the things that were later written about him were written sixty years after his death. However, Jesus was most likely still popular well after he died and his message was still being preached so he was the perfect choice. I suspect all the true things about Jesus weren't good enough for the early Christians and they wanted to make him perfect with no flaws. So they added in all kinds of stuff from the old testament so they can say he fulfilled the prophesy's and then they rejected things about him that were probably true and did not place it in the bible, and then all the stuff that was written about the pagan god's was also stolen to make things more even more interesting....for example, I bet Judas WAS told by Jesus to betray him because maybe Christ was crazy and thought he needed to die so he could fulfill the prophecy. "But HEY...in all those other stories about the other fake God's we're stealing from had their right-hand men betray them and we need more bad guys to make our story interesting so let's take the man who was probably Jesus' best friend and turn him into a villain and one of the most hated figures in history.".....I also suspect Jesus was married and did have children, but once again..."HEY, that screws up our plan to make Jesus pure! Plus, we don't want people going around worshiping his kids! We only need one guy!" So that was also kept out and who knows what other things were kept from the public. Tidbit time: I wrote part of this post through an e-mail and every time I typed Horus...my spell checker would change it to "hours", and the word "hours" comes from Horus. So I thought that was interesting. Perhaps Horus is the one true God and he was speaking to me through e-mail! Amen!

 


aiia
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Zeeboe wrote:Because that's

Zeeboe wrote:

Because that's how must urban legends get started. Take the WTC Tourist guy for example. All fake, but he is still a real person who exists and he did visit New York City. Seriously, if you go to snopes.com you'll see that most (not all) of the myths on there did start off as something real.
Here we have proof of the Tourist’s existence who testified that the picture was faked, whereas in the case of ‘jesus’ not only is the story in question but also the man’s existence is the question.
Quote:
I also think that not everything needs physical evidence to be proven to be true.
there has to be some physical source or “it” is pure conjecture.
Quote:
Sometimes all one needs is to be a good judge of character.
But are you able to judge the character of author of the bible?
Quote:
Now for another example: I don't know if Peter denying Jesus was an actual event but if it was, I'm sure Jesus did predict it. Not because he is the Son of God who knows everything but because Peter probably did have a lot of love for Jesus and would be concerned for him and follow the guards as they took Jesus away, but Peter probably had a lot of cowardly traits about him and when confronted, he'd turn yellow.
But there is no evidence that peter existed. So peter cannot be used as a source.
Quote:
Now then, as most of us know...Christmas is a pagan holiday that the early Christians stole and made it into their own, and then they stole everything about various pagan gods and applied it to their own God, and this is all a matter of personal opinion and just based off of my experiences and observations of the human race and some knowledge I have on history: I don't think the early Christians were smart enough to create their very own character and/or have the idea to forming a false religion without some kind of inspiration behind it. It's been proven that they were already a bunch of thieves who couldn't come up with their own original ideas, holidays, traditions and customs. So why do they now have the smarts to create their character too?

Speaking of being a judge of character, how would you judge people who would do this? Does liar come into mind?
Quote:
Horus was invented because of the sun and Set was invented because of night time.  And I truly believe every fake God had some type of real item or person that inspired people to create those characters because it was a very primitive time back then and people were not nearly as smart as they are today. So in regards of Jesus Christ, I suspect the early Christians figured...."Let's take someone who is already very popular and someone who people were already saying he was the Son of God and let him be the flagship to our religion."

So why would a "real jesus" be needed at all?
Quote:
Now I know all the things that were later written about him were written sixty years after his death. However, Jesus was most likely still popular well after he died and his message was still being preached so he was the perfect choice.

Isn't this circular reasoning? what jesus?

Hint: The word "jesus" didn't exist until around 1200 ce and people were not given 'names' per se, most people were called (identified) by a cognomen.

People who think there is something they refer to as god don't ask enough questions.


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As I wrote before, I can't

As I wrote before, I can't debate this with you point by point because I have no evidence for the existence of Christ. As you know, there were no cameras or anything of that nature back then so all we really have from that era is text and word of mouth. In the end, it's up to each individual person to decide. And this is going to sound like I am trying to back out, but truly...it is honestly doesn't matter rather Jesus was a real human being or not. We all agree there is no God, and rather Jesus or his followers started a false religion doesn't matter. I do however wish that if Jesus was real, we could find evidence for his existence because if we did, it might prove to Christians that he was not who they thought he was, and even though it may eliminate Christianity, there'd still be other religions but at least it would be one less group of crazies. Of course, I suspect most Christians would then become Jews...so yeah, God's people are probably not ever going away.

 


Luminon
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There was found an old bowl

There was found an old bowl with a reference to Christ. See the whole message here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26972493/

Now, the question is, did somoene scrape that writing onto the bowl much later? I hope they checked it.

Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.


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Luminon wrote:There was

Luminon wrote:

There was found an old bowl with a reference to Christ. See the whole message here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26972493/

Now, the question is, did somoene scrape that writing onto the bowl much later? I hope they checked it.


What is interesting about the image is that it doesn't say "Xristou" at all but "Xrhstou", ie "of Chrestos" and Chrestos was a name that was used in the area at the time. So it is utter bull that it refers to Jesus.

spin

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spin
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aiia wrote: The word "jesus"

aiia wrote:

Hint: The word "jesus" didn't exist until around 1200 ce and people were not given 'names' per se, most people were called (identified) by a cognomen.


I don't understand this. Obvious the name "Jesus" existed. It was used throughout the Septuagint and Josephus. On what historical basis can one say "most people were called (identified) by [the Roman notion of] a cognomen"?

spin

Trust the evidence, Luke