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There is NO Historical Evidence for Jesus

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
You asked, "when you were a Christian, did you call the majority of scientists who accept evolution as the "bandwagon fallacy" because they disagreed with your beliefs in a 6000 year old earth?" I answered you with, "Why would he? A consensus of experts is different from a consensus of faith-based thinkers."
Oh okay. But I think my point was in saying it was the same mentality, of trying to discredit whichever consensus disagrees with you because you are in love with your pet beliefs. She/he probably did it as a true believer against science in support of creationism, and as now a true unbeliever against the majority of historians to discredit them likewise in order to maintain the fringe mythistist view that feels better to believe on an emotional/faith level. That was my point. Why she/he would was because of 'true believerism', not the credibility of the experts.
Without Paul and others who decided to make this story into a religion, there is no reason to believe that we would never have heard of Jesus.
That doesn't negate my point. Of course it was because others spread the teachings. But the fact they did, and the fact that they were picked up and spread, and received and became so popular, speaks to the actual source itself.

Now, you could try to argue cynically that it was all some slick modern marketing campaign to sell a mediocre product to the gullible masses, but that honestly doesn't really add up to the premodern, far more realistic reality of how things happened organically like that back then.

There was no Madison Avenue marketing team with degrees in psychological targeting different groups of people with slick slogans and whatnot. That's reading history through a modernists view, and just a plain sloppy and cynical critique. While that certainly does apply to these barfy mega-churches with their slick campaigns, and mass media appeal, it was a different world back then.
You mean the legend of the person. The life and words of Jesus were ordinary.
I would disagree they were ordinary. If you consider the time and context in which they were spoken, they were actually considered radical. Maybe they now seem 'commonplace', but honestly how many actually understand them outside of the cliches that they become through overuse and cheap platitudes?

Also, same thing for Buddha. Yet do you call his life and words "ordinary"?
I consider the two very different. Buddha never advised anybody to pluck their eyes out or to hate their families, nor extolled faith over reason.
Yes, well, your readings of these things reflect your deep cynicism, and a bad hermeneutic. I'm quite certain you could distort the teachings of Buddha the exact same ways. You could do the same with the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, or even the with Sound of Music, were you so motivated to. I of course don't take such readings seriously.
 

Colt

Well-Known Member
Now you are conflating the claims with what happened. Did Jesus have followers? Probably. Did he have thousands while alive? That may not be true. That claim appears to be lacking when it comes to evidence. Did he save any? That claim is totally lacking in support.

Matthew 14:13-21

Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand

13 When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
15 As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.”
16 Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”
17 “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.
18 “Bring them here to me,” he said. 19 And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. 20 They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 21 The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member

Matthew 14:13-21​

Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand​

13 When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
15 As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.”
16 Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”
17 “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.
18 “Bring them here to me,” he said. 19 And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. 20 They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 21 The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.
Yes, that is a claim from a largely fictional account. So what?
 

Alien826

No religious beliefs
It doesn’t matter that the answer was wrong. Thinking you had an answer enabled you to sleep until the right answer eventually presented itself, which I’m sure it did in it’s own good time.
That the answer was wrong is critical to my point. As you say, my mind fooled itself into believing it was correct so I could get to sleep. Later, my mind convinced itself that I was communicating with God. Same thing, in essence.

And yes, a colleague worked out what the problem was and we fixed it, to my great relief.
 

Thrillobyte

Active Member
We are supposed to be having a "faith experience". You want your homework done for you. Thats spiritual laziness!

Jesus appeared to thousands of people while he was on earth! They believed and many were saved. But look what hard hearted humans did to the Son of God who actually stood before them?
Were these appearances before thousands of people in his human form or resurrected form?
 

Colt

Well-Known Member
Were these appearances before thousands of people in his human form or resurrected form?
After the resurrection Jesus appeared before believers in reward for their faith in him while he was in the flesh.

I have a sense that you are not a bad person invested in this opposition to Jesus! I can see that at point in the future you will accept Jesus into your heart! Just my sense! IMOP
 

Thrillobyte

Active Member
You seem confused.

1. The evidence for Jesus the human is pretty good by normal historical standards and is not dependent on 'hearsay'.

2. The evidence for a miraculous Jesus is much, much weaker, not non-existent, but much weaker, especially to those who assume (with good reason) uniformity on the laws of nature mean that miracles don't happen. I certainly don't believe they happened, but unless we want to uncritically repeat lazy polemics, dismissing oral history as 'hearsay' is a bit silly. Historical Jesus studies should use the same standards we apply to other areas of history, no special favours like fundies expect, and no special negatives as many bitter anti-theists like you expect.

In a court of law, oral history might count as hearsay with the legal consequences that follow, in standard historical methodology, it's viewed as oral history. You certainly don't accept it uncritically as truth, but you also don't dismiss it out of hand as worthless hearsay.

But something tells me you aren't that interested in rational enquiry, just cathartic venting.
What is the evidence for Jesus the human? Forget about Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny and all those other bogus references. None of them mention Jesus the Christ. Josephus is an interpolation that's already been proved.
 

SkepticThinker

Veteran Member

Matthew 14:13-21​

Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand​

13 When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
15 As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.”
16 Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”
17 “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.
18 “Bring them here to me,” he said. 19 And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. 20 They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 21 The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.
Cool story, bro. How do we know it's true?
 

Colt

Well-Known Member
Cool story, bro. How do we know it's true?
Because humble Jewish men and women left their religion to follow Jesus even though it meant persecution and the worst kinds of death all that the story would be available for future generations of believers.
 

Thrillobyte

Active Member
After the resurrection Jesus appeared before believers in reward for their faith in him while he was in the flesh.

I have a sense that you are not a bad person invested in this opposition to Jesus! I can see that at point in the future you will accept Jesus into your heart! Just my sense! IMOP
That wasn't my question. My question was

"Were these appearances before thousands of people in his human form or resurrected form?"

The answer should be, "In his resurrected form" or "In his human form".

Go for it.
 

Colt

Well-Known Member
That wasn't my question. My question was

"Were these appearances before thousands of people in his human form or resurrected form?"

The answer should be, "In his resurrected form" or "In his human form".

Go for it.
From the Bible there were 500 AFTER the resurrection, "In his resurrected form"

BTW, Jesus would appear and vanish from sight!
 

dybmh

דניאל יוסף בן מאיר הירש
It's disappointing to see your increasing snark and disresepect. I had high regards for you as one of the more thoughtful theists. You are smart enough to have known that i was referring to the content of the Gospels that aren't known to be true.

That's a strawman, and trying to repeatedly shift the conversation onto that topic, after repeated reminders, deserves disrespect. I grant respect by default, and then revoke it when warranted.

Which lacks evidence as being true, namely the supernatural elelments that no thinker can take seriously.

Not true. A materialist is a limited thinker. You're not talking about ALL thinkers, you're only talking about a subset. Great minds have contemplated these issues and found them plausible. They simply aren't limited thinkers.

What you fail to see is, the unqualified comment is an insult. And it's the same when you make there claims about critical-thinkers and contrast those claims immediately with either "theists" or "believers". I totally expect it. And it doesn't hurt. I simply point out the hypocrisy.

So those complaints about disrespect are ignored.

But it implies Santa does, and the fooled child goes to bed.

The child asking the question doesn't necessarily believe in Santa.

If critical thinkers are something you suspect don't exist, then how do you qualify your own thinking?

I didn't say they didn't exist. My opinion is the people who make the most noise are usually the most guilty. Then comes the whisle-blower. That's me.

Are you as flawed as the so-called "critical thinkers", and your posts as easy to dismiss?

No, because I actually bring reasons, and I will show in detail where the data comes from, and I will present both sides. Someimes it takes a lot of words to do it. And most of the critics ( not actual critical thinkers ), completely ignore what's said and interpret, "This is a religious person trying to convert". See below:

So you are working to bring people back to religious belief?

I repeatedly stated my position was a moderate, "I don't know and the absence of historical records are not conclusive of anything."

But you somehow leaped to... You want to bring people back to a religious belief.

You show more contempt for questions critical thinkers ask, and these are typically in response to what believers claim, so fair game. You seem to be feeling less comfortable with these questions.

Not at all. I answer the questions. My contempt is when the question is not a real question, it's a challenge. And then when the challenge is met, and overcome, the challenge is changed. Bait-and-switch. No one likes a bait-and-switch.

But, like I said. We're in a public space, and people have a right to get real answers to these questions. Someone posted a video in another thread, I thought was interesting. First of all, the speaker of the video admits that they were once an evangelical, an preached to people trying to convince them to accept Jesus. And now, here they are, still preaching. This time for the anti-religious movement. The "deconstruction" community. Like I said in this thread. Old habits die hard.

The next thing I though was interesting, is the person who posted the video claimed: "Christians cherry pick." But..... that's exactly what the video does. It cherry picks. It's obvious to me, because I've studied these issues, and I know the arguments. They skip over the verses that say a rapist is killed, like 2 or 3 verses ago, and instead focus on another verse that, in their english translation, completely contradicts that death sentence. So, yeah, Christian's cherry pick, and this speaker/preacher for the deconstruction movement is still basically a Christian, assuming the poster is right about that. They're still preach'n and still cherry-pick'n.

Then that leads me to the third thing that's interesting. The assumptions. And critics do this, a lot of Christian's do this. They assume that the english translation is correct. They ignore that there are people that know these verses much much better than they do. And they're simpy not asking the right people, and honestly, even using english translations there's enough in theres to show that the conclusion that Deut 22:28-29 is a rape is highly dubious. The preacher on the video had problems with this idea, naturally, and ays they went to their pastor and the pastor couldn't answer satisfactorily, and that was it. They stopped questioning after that.

Why stop there? Probably because they never really considered that there could be an answer. They assumed it must be evil men who wrote the bible, but they never considered it was men who translated their bible. In a way, they're right, but that wasn't the original intention.

So, I answer those questions from critics that are *actually* non-questions because some person out there might really be struggling, and they deserve to get both sides of the story.

Bad thinking here. Critical thinkers may ask questions of theists assuming their assumptions about a God. Challenging this assumption is fair game if the answer also assumes a God exists. You are smart enough to known this.

No.... if the question assumes that God exists, if the questioner challenges the assumption in their own question, then they are arguing with themself.

This is all a rather casual discussion, and many things I say is common knowledge. You seem to be griping about anything these days.

Sure, it's common knowledge that the bible-critics who come onto forums to argue are rarely critical thinkers. They are just overly critical of others, and overly permissive of themselves.
 

Sgt. Pepper

All you need is love.
I'm not sure that is totally true. What the Evangelicals wanted was certain political objectives, most notably the banning of abortion, that they consider to be murder. When their inconsistency in using a blatant "sinner" to achieve their ends was pointed out to them, they responded that God sometimes uses sinners to achieve his ends and quoted Cyrus, the Persian king who allowed the Israelites to return to Palestine,as an example.

It was all politics at base.
That may be true for some evangelical conservative Christian Trump supporters, but it is not true for all of them.

My family is overwhelmingly evangelical conservative Christians who firmly believe that Trump is a Christian and that God sent him to reclaim America. I'm now estranged from both sides of my family because of how they treated me while I was still a Christian and refused to support and vote for Trump. I have aunts, uncles, and cousins who have turned on me and talked about me behind my back. I was intentionally left out and not invited to our annual family reunion in the summer following Trump's election. I later found out by a friend of the family that I wasn't invited to the reunion because my presence there would have upset everyone else. Unfortunately, the verbal abuse, the bullying, and the harassment increased substantially after I voted for Biden. I had to block the phone numbers of my relatives and former conservative friends, and I blocked a few of them on Facebook. But one of the worst experiences for me was having to call the police on my cousin because he threatened to physically hurt me after he found out that I voted for Biden. I've had conservative friends whom I've known for years turn their backs on me because I don't support Trump. I had to block their phone numbers and block them on Facebook.

And, lastly, I'm a former member of a Christian forum where the majority of the evangelicals genuinely believed and declared in their posts that Trump is a Christian, that God anointed him to reclaim America, and that God appointed him to purge America of liberals. When I initially voiced my objection to Trump in a response to one of these Christians, I was immediately and persistently disparaged, called derogatory names, and accused of not being a true Christian. I was called evil and godless, and I was constantly called a "demon rat." After I informed another member who was also being harassed for not supporting Trump that I had voted for Biden, the harassment intensified even more. I was accused of being demon-possessed and was told that was what caused me to vote for Biden. I was also spitefully reported by several members, which led to my being permanently banned without a warning. But when I reported the members who harassed me, I was told that I was the troublemaker, and I received a warning, not the members who degraded and harassed me. A staff member who secretly sympathized with me emailed me the day after I was banned to let me know about a thread where these members were gloating about how they got me and the other harassed user perma-banned. It was upsetting to read the scathing remarks about me and the other user.
 

Thrillobyte

Active Member
That may be true for some evangelical conservative Christian Trump supporters, but it is not true for all of them.

My family is overwhelmingly evangelical conservative Christians who firmly believe that Trump is a Christian and that God sent him to reclaim America. I'm now estranged from both sides of my family because of how they treated me while I was still a Christian and refused to support and vote for Trump. I have aunts, uncles, and cousins who have turned on me and talked about me behind my back. I was intentionally left out and not invited to our annual family reunion in the summer following Trump's election. I later found out by a friend of the family that I wasn't invited to the reunion because my presence there would have upset everyone else. Unfortunately, the verbal abuse, the bullying, and the harassment increased substantially after I voted for Biden. I had to block the phone numbers of my relatives and former conservative friends, and I blocked a few of them on Facebook. But one of the worst experiences for me was having to call the police on my cousin because he threatened to physically hurt me after he found out that I voted for Biden. I've had conservative friends whom I've known for years turn their backs on me because I don't support Trump. I had to block their phone numbers and block them on Facebook.

And, lastly, I'm a former member of a Christian forum where the majority of the evangelicals genuinely believed and declared in their posts that Trump is a Christian, that God anointed him to reclaim America, and that God appointed him to purge America of liberals. When I initially voiced my objection to Trump in a response to one of these Christians, I was immediately and persistently disparaged, called derogatory names, and accused of not being a true Christian. I was called evil and godless, and I was constantly called a "demon rat." After I informed another member who was also being harassed for not supporting Trump that I had voted for Biden, the harassment intensified even more. I was accused of being demon-possessed and was told that was what caused me to vote for Biden. I was also spitefully reported by several members, which led to my being permanently banned without a warning. But when I reported the members who harassed me, I was told that I was the troublemaker, and I received a warning, not the members who degraded and harassed me. A staff member who secretly sympathized with me emailed me the day after I was banned to let me know about a thread where these members were gloating about how they got me and the other harassed user perma-banned. It was upsetting to read the scathing remarks about me and the other user.
This is what convinces me Christianity is actually a demonic religion. Christians support him. That makes Christians in league with demonic forces.
 

SkepticThinker

Veteran Member
Because humble Jewish men and women left their religion to follow Jesus even though it meant persecution and the worst kinds of death all that the story would be available for future generations of believers.
It tells us nothing about whether it's true or not.

Jim Jones had hundreds of followers too. Followers who were willing to take their own lives, and their children's lives. People believe stuff. Doesn't make it true.
 
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