There is NO Historical Evidence for Jesus

[It Aint Necessarily So]

@Thrillobyte has reinforced my belief that if Jesus existed, then he was just an ordinary man and a popular religious teacher of his time whose devoted followers fabricated some stories about him as well as adapted some stories from Greek mythology to make him appear godlike. I also believe that as time passed and his legend gained popularity, more of his followers altered and added additional stories from other pagan religions to his mythology.

Agreed, which is why it is irrelevant if any of the story is historical if any of it is fabricated. If that wasn't a demigod, then what difference does it make whether he lived or not? Once one throws out the miracles, what's left but (as you say) a very ordinary life?

His audience would have known whether or not there was such a story floating around in their sphere. If Matthew had just made it up and tried to pass it off as an already established bit of local folklore, it would have cost him in terms of credibility

I don't think credibility was a principle concern in that time and place. They claimed virgin birth and resurrection from the dead and were believed.

Oh great. Another Christian bashing thread.

Oh great. Another Christian martyr. Outsiders just can't understand how much oppression they suffer being challenged to defend their beliefs. It's really outrageous.

I notice you didn't try to rebut it. Nor try to explain why it should matter whether the Jesus story was partly or entirely fabricated.

This is just an anti-Christian rant thread.

This is scholarship. And many of the usual suspects have already appeared to bemoan having their beliefs questioned. Yes, those beliefs are being cancelled as organized, politicized religion becomes increasingly marginalized, and the worried faithful are trying to cancel the cancelers.

The Jesus mythicists tend to be anti-Christian conspiracy theorists

He says as he posts his conspiracy theory.

Even when supplied with evidence of the existence of Jesus it is denied...... Or one will say well he may have lived but he was just a man and he didn't do miracles

Why should this matter? The truth is somewhere between Jesus was an ordinary man about whom magical stories were invented and Jesus was pure fiction.

What's so "careless" about throwing one's life away for a myth?

It can be costly. Imagine yourself in the religious boat with the believers. How would your life have been different? As soon as I left Christianity, I stopped s[ending time reading holy books, praying, and going to churches. I stopped giving them money. I repurposed all of that time to reading the things that shaped my life, to becoming a competent and active musician playing in bands with my wife, travelling, and accumulating art. Would we have had children if we were still Christians? Probably. How would that change life for people that are happy without them?

Jesus deliberately didn't write anything lest it become a fetish.

Then he shouldn't have spoken, either. People take notes.

 

[Twilight Hue]

His snakebite story sure is phony

It's a clear contradiction with the writing in the Book of Matthew and dispels the myth that the gospels are harmonious.

Not to mention Paul, a complete absolute terror beforehand, coming in all of a sudden and the Apostles without questioning his veracity saying to the effect, "Cool, welcome to the club"!

"Oh by the way, never mind that Matthew. He was plastered drunk at the time and didn't mean at all what he was saying to people not to believe anyone claiming to have run into Christ".

 

[Thrillobyte]

I thought you dropped out of Christianity. If so, why cite the Bible?
Do you really believe that God is a man, a Sky-Daddy? Maybe you should have remained a Christian.

Baha'is do not refer to God as the Father, since God is clearly not a man.

While the Baháʼí writings teach of a personal god who is a being with a personality (including the capacity to reason and to feel love), they clearly state that this does not imply a human or physical form.[2] Shoghi Effendi writes:​

​

What is meant by personal God is a God Who is conscious of His creation, Who has a Mind, a Will, a Purpose, and not, as many scientists and materialists believe, an unconscious and determined force operating in the universe. Such conception of the Divine Being, as the Supreme and ever present Reality in the world, is not anthropomorphic, for it transcends all human limitations and forms, and does by no means attempt to define the essence of Divinity which is obviously beyond any human comprehension. To say that God is a personal Reality does not mean that He has a physical form, or does in any way resemble a human being. To entertain such belief would be sheer blasphemy.[15][16]​

​

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_the_Bahai Faith​

What do the Baháʼís call their God?

The Baháʼí scriptures refer to God by various titles and attributes, such as Almighty, All-Powerful, All-Wise, Incomparable, Gracious, Helper, All-Glorious, Omniscient and All-Loving. Bahá'is believe the greatest of all the names of God is "All-Glorious" or Bahá in Arabic.​

God in the Baháʼí Faith - Wikipedia​

I thought you dropped out of Christianity. If so, why cite the Bible?

That's called using the Bible to disprove the Bible.

 

[Colt]

This is not true, Coulter. John 6:37 makes it perfectly clear that it is the Father who makes the first move, not us of our free will:

"All that the Father giveth me shall come to me"

We do not have the power to come to God of our free will. We were born in sin and dead to God as Paul makes perfectly clear in Ephesians 2:5 :

"Even when we were dead in sins, he hath quickened us together with Christ, 6 And hath raised us up together.

You were dead in your sins. A dead man has no power to exercise free will to accept Jesus. God chose a particular people to be his children in heaven. The rest he has chosen not to save and to allow them to go into damnation. That's clearly evident in the scriptures:

READ THIS NEXT PART CAREFULLY FOLKS BECAUSE THIS SHOWS HOW ROTTEN THE CHRISTIAN GOD REALLY IS!

“Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ Does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory" Romans 9:20-23

Translated: God prepared some of us for glory (heaven) and some of us for destruction (hell). Although he desired to make known his wrath and power to those he destined for destruction (hell), instead He endured with patience those he prepared for destruction (hell) to make known to those he prepared for glory (heaven) the riches of his glory. And if you think this is unfair do you have a right to say to your maker, "Why did you destine me for destruction (hell)?" Doesn't God have the right to destine you to anywhere that he wills?

You don’t believe any of that happened so it’s difficult to take your argument seriously.

We can choose to do Gods will or reject salvation. Not everyone wants to survive.

 

[Thrillobyte]

That is one thing that Christians are right about. How could God's ways NOT be higher than our ways if God is All-Knowing and All-Wise?

Although there are some explanations in scripture, we don't always know why 'what we consider bad things' happen since that is not for us to know.
If we are believers we take it on faith that everything that happens is ultimately for our own good, because God wants what is best for us.

Most people who drop out of Christianity don't do so because thye did not get what they wanted from God. They drop out because they finally come to the conclusion that the Christian doctrines make no sense at all and/or they realize that the Bible is not what they thought it was.

Here's where we get back to the "Just believe God on faith. Don't ask questions,don't ask for explanations--JUST BELIEVE!" I don't subscribe to such an approach, especially in a religion that is lousy with conmen coming out of the woodwork. When I was a Christian, do you know how much money I lost because of shyster televangelists who said, "Give money! It's none of your business how I use it, just trust me on faith I use it for God's work." And then he went out and bought twin private jets for himself and his wife "To do God's work spreading the gospel of Jesus around the world." He neglected to mention he and his wife liked to stay in the Presidential Suites of the finest 5-star hotels and eat in the finest restaurants in resorts they jetted to for a little R&R--all on their non-profit's dime I might add.

 

[Copernicus]

You don’t believe any of that happened so it’s difficult to take your argument seriously.

We can choose to do Gods will or reject salvation. Not everyone wants to survive.

But you do believe all those things happened without even an argument to support the belief, so it's difficult to take your claims seriously.

 

[Colt]

Yes, it's always about free will, isn't it?

The thing I find most puzzling is embodied in the question "From god's point of view, what is the purpose of it all?" Without an answer to that, what hope do we have? Is salvation a reward for giving correct answers in a game of Trivial Pursuit? Is it, as Mark Twain supposedly said, "Believing what you know dern well ain't so"? Is it some kind of game where the winners and losers are predetermined, and there is nothing any of us can do about it? Is salvation, as it seems to me, dependent on a sacrifice system where our sins can be magically transferred to an innocent person, and torturing that person to death satisfies god's need for revenge? Does god really care about us, and if so why put us through all this crap? Does god really want all of us to be saved, and if so why make salvation so friggin difficult to understand?

I really don't see what is so wrong with god revealing himself and his purposes clearly. It would be no different from a benevolent human government that laid out plain laws for us to follow, and following them proved to be overwhelmingly beneficial. We could still break the law if we chose to, but why would we?

Imagine this. Here's us, lost. Over there is a place where life is wonderful, we just have to get there. And here's god, with a map. What makes more sense? He appears to us and says, look, I've set out sign posts, just follow them. I'll keep an eye on you as you go. Or, I've set out various clues, hidden along the way. You have to find each one and solve the riddle to get to then next clue. Oh, and there are deep holes you can fall into if you get the clues wrong. Now I'll just go away and let you get on with it. Good luck!

Which of these two methods seem more likely, if god is truly benevolent?

Experience in life is the thing if supreme value. It is Gods giving and lovable nature to share himself by giving life to his children who if they choose can grow up to be like God. Endless service, eternal adventure, experience and joy!

 

[Thrillobyte]

You don’t believe any of that happened so it’s difficult to take your argument seriously.

We can choose to do Gods will or reject salvation. Not everyone wants to survive.

It is somewhat presumptive of you to try to tell me what I believe and don't believe, isn't it Coulter?

And to say not everyone wants to survive has to be one of the most bizarre things I've ever heard a Christian say. But I am not surprised.

 

[Thrillobyte]

God hears all our prayers and God answers some of them in the sense that we get what we asked for, but God does not give us everything we ask for.
Why would God give people everything they ask for? Don't you think that an All-Knowing and All-Wise God has a better handle on what we need than we do?
No human is All-Knowing or All-Wise, so no human can know as much as God. That means that God knows more than we know regarding what is most beneficial for us. This is simple logic.

I have to fill you in on a little study that was done on prayer, Trail. Here it is:

Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer​

Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found.

Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer (Published 2006)

Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found. And patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications like abnormal heart rhythms, perhaps because of...

www.nytimes.com

 

[Quagmire]

I don't think credibility was a principle concern in that time and place. They claimed virgin birth and resurrection from the dead and were believed

Different kind of credibility: what you're talking about is the credibility of certain elements within the stories.

What I'm talking about is a claim that a certain story existed in the first place.

 

[Trailblazer]

I have to fill you in on a little study that was done on prayer, Trail. Here it is:

Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer​

Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found.

Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer (Published 2006)

Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found. And patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications like abnormal heart rhythms, perhaps because of...

www.nytimes.com

Thanks, but I am not a subscriber so I could not read the whole article, but my questions still stand.

Why would God give people everything they ask for? Don't you think that an All-Knowing and All-Wise God has a better handle on what we need than we do?

God knows more than we know and God is wiser than we are and this is the crux of the issue.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

We can choose to do Gods will or reject salvation. Not everyone wants to survive.

I AM A SURVIVOR. I am a survivor of the Christian indoctrination that I was subjected to throughout my life and a survivor of the childhood abuse (physical, psychological, and sexual) I suffered at the hands of Christians while I was growing up. And don't bother trying to defend your Christian faith with the ad nauseam excuse of "They weren't real Christians" bull crap either, because the "No True Scotsman" cop-out excuse doesn't fly with me.

I know what I've survived, and I know that I saved myself with no help from your God. I can say with absolute certainty that I don't need or want your God in my life. I learned the hard way that I don't need your God to save me, take care of me, or dictate how I need to live my life. I don't need your God to be a good person or to make moral decisions. I had to learn how to take care of myself because there was no God to save me when I was growing up and being beaten to within an inch of my life, when I was being molested by my older brother, or when I was raped twice by the same man. There was no God to protect and comfort me during all of the times I feared for my life as I grew up. If your God exists, he obviously doesn't believe I am worth his time to save, and now I don't believe he is worth my time. To be quite honest, I have to laugh and scoff every time I hear some Christian or another Abrahamic theist say that God is loving and merciful. On the contrary, I believe that if their God exists, then he is about as loving and merciful as a deadly king cobra.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

You are talking logic and reason but don't expect it to stick....
I have been trying that for five years to no avail.

Actually, I believe that it goes both ways. As a matter of fact, I know quite a few people in real life and have met even more online who used logic and reason to liberate themselves from the Christian indoctrination they were subjected to during their lifetime. I participate in a support group for survivors of childhood abuse, and the majority of these other survivors are former Christians just as I am or are on the verge of leaving Christianity. I've personally supported these people in their concentrated effort to overcome not only the trauma they suffered but also the Christian indoctrination that has ensnared them in a life of fear, guilt, shame, and confusion. I've personally helped these people research and examine a lot of material for and against Christianity, just as I did, and they too concluded that the evidence against Christianity was more compelling and reasonable than the material they read defending Christianity. For the record, I've known quite a few Christians in real life and met a few online who refused to listen to any logic or reason regarding their cherished beliefs because what they were told contradicted what they believed about God, the Bible, Christian theology, and their churches' doctrines.

 

[Colt]

I AM A SURVIVOR. I am a survivor of the Christian indoctrination that I was subjected to throughout my life and a survivor of the childhood abuse (physical, psychological, and sexual) I suffered at the hands of Christians while I was growing up. And don't bother trying to defend your Christian faith with the ad nauseam excuse of "They weren't real Christians" bull crap either, because the "No True Scotsman" cop-out excuse doesn't fly with me.

I know what I've survived, and I know that I saved myself with no help from your God. I can say with absolute certainty that I don't need or want your God in my life. I learned the hard way that I don't need your God to save me, take care of me, or dictate how I need to live my life. I don't need your God to be a good person or to make moral decisions. I had to learn how to take care of myself because there was no God to save me when I was growing up and being beaten to within an inch of my life, when I was being molested by my older brother, or when I was raped twice by the same man. There was no God to protect and comfort me during all of the times I feared for my life as I grew up. If your God exists, he obviously doesn't believe I am worth his time to save, and now I don't believe he is worth my time. To be quite honest, I have to laugh and scoff every time I hear some Christian or another Abrahamic theist say that God is loving and merciful. On the contrary, I believe that if their God exists, then he is about as loving and merciful as a deadly king cobra.

You haven't learned to forgive like Jesus forgave those who tortured and murdered him! If you ever do you will finally be free!

Stay angry, bitter and stuck in endless self-pity! You aren't the center of the universe! Plenty of people have endured injustice and learned how to get free from it. But you won't! You get too much milage out of being the victim!

 

[Colt]

It is somewhat presumptive of you to try to tell me what I believe and don't believe, isn't it Coulter?

And to say not everyone wants to survive has to be one of the most bizarre things I've ever heard a Christian say. But I am not surprised.

Presumptive? I read your OP

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

You haven't learned to forgive like Jesus forgave those who tortured and murdered him! If you ever do you will finally be free!

Stay angry, bitter and stuck in endless self-pity! You aren't the center of the universe! Plenty of people have endured injustice and learned how to get free from it. But you won't! You get too much milage out of being the victim!

On the contrary, I've forgiven quite a few people in my life, but there are people that I don't believe deserve forgiveness. And you're damned right; I am angry. I am angry at how Christianity has ensnared so many native people into living a wasted life of fear, self-guilt, and shame because they've allegedly sinned against a sadistic, psychotic, and jealous God that most likely doesn't even exist in the first place, and they believe that they have to beg for this God's forgiveness so he will "love" them and not send them to either an eternity of endless torture and/or be eternally separated from him. I've personally experienced and witnessed many times how destructive and emotionally detrimental believing in the biblical God can be for a person. It's often a mental prison for a lot of hurting people. And as far as your pointless rant is concerned, I'll give it all the consideration I think it deserves, which is, of course, none.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

The outside sources say there is no evidence for the Jesus of the gospels, sorry. Read it for yourself.

“In the entire first Christian century Jesus is not mentioned by a single Greek or Roman historian, religion scholar, politician, philosopher or poet. His name never occurs in a single inscription, and it is never found in a single piece of private correspondence. Zero! Zip references! In other words, there is no non-Christian evidence from the first century of a “historical Jesus.” ” Bart Ehrman

The outside sources! Well, that's different.

--> ignore-list​

 

[Colt]

On the contrary, I've forgiven quite a few people in my life, but there are people that I don't believe deserve forgiveness. And you're damned right; I am angry. I am angry at how Christianity has ensnared so many native people into living a wasted life of fear, self-guilt, and shame because they've allegedly sinned against a sadistic, psychotic, and jealous God that most likely doesn't even exist in the first place, and they believe that they have to beg for this God's forgiveness so he will "love" them and not send them to either an eternity of endless torture and/or be eternally separated from him. I've personally experienced and witnessed many times how destructive and emotionally detrimental believing in the biblical God can be for a person. It's often a mental prison for a lot of hurting people. And as far as your pointless rant is concerned, I'll give it all the consideration I think it deserves, which is, of course, none.

I understand your point about what I believe are misrepresentations of God in the scripture and certain Christian theology. I wasn't raised in that kind of Theology and never believed in hell and the exaggerated crap in the OT and warped Book of incoherent revelation.

So you figured it out on your own! You KNOW full well that God the Father isn't like that! Why not dedicate your life to revealing the true loving Father?

 

[Trailblazer]

Actually, I believe that it goes both ways. As a matter of fact, I know quite a few people in real life and have met even more online who used logic and reason to liberate themselves from the Christian indoctrination they were subjected to during their lifetime.

It certainly does go both ways, as there is nothing logical or reasonable about the commonly believed Christian doctrines!

 

[Alien826]

It might go viral, but that does not mean that EVERYONE is going to 'believe' what they read on the internet.
Do you believe everything you read on the internet? I sure hope not.

You've missed the point. First, I receive the message myself. Then I compare notes with everyone I know and find they received the same message. Then I look on the Internet to find that millions of others have too. Are you sure you wouldn't find that persuasive?