Salieri

You guys still haven't provided one ounce of proof that Jesus isn't who he says he is yet you slander his name, call his words lies & fantasies, curse him, mock him, & his followers and declare that you know better whether he lived & died than the people who saw him do! A man is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. So why do you jduge a man when you can't prove he's guilty?You don't do this to Buddha or Rhama Krishna yet you do this to someone who gave his life so that you don't have to feel guilty any more! Why do you have such a desire to do these things to Jesus? What did he ever do to you to treat him this way, especially if you believe he's only a fairy tale!?Do you believe in Zeus? If not, do you mock the followers of Zeus?

Oikoman

Then again, you have a very odd idea of "logic" and "proof".

Agnostic Theist

I don't mock Jesus, I merely antagonise those who claim his existence via the fallacy of Begging the Question. I also stand against these people's absrd beliefs that we should all prescribe to their socio-political and ethical ethos despite the blatent fact that atheism has more logical and empirical support than christianity.

Edit: This is another Edit(tm) brought to you by the Irish publicans of Donegal

Feck! Wha's with all these fecking threads on tha sam fecking subjict?! Hey, yoo, yoo, fecking muds, wha's wron with ah fecking fred merge?

newtype_alpha

Unlike Zeus, Buddha or Rhama, Jesus is the only one of them who has ever claimed that it was absolutely imperative for some reason to believe in him, follow him, and walk around praising him like some kind of lost puppy. Jesus is like a door to door salesman who shows up at your house trying to peddle his specially made gimick, all the while babbling about his own greatness and his own glory.

At this moment we have the same proof that Jesus was/wasn't who he said he was as we do that Muhammad was/wasn't who he said he was. It's a fifty fifty chance either way, since whoever provides more compelling evidence sends the believers of the others to everlasting hell .

You are now in the position of trying to prove that Jesus' testimony (infact, it's not even his own testimony but that of his followers) is any more or less valid than a plethora of other deities that contradict the statements he is purported to have made. Muhammad even has more credibility since he, at least, indirectly authored the Quran more directly than Jesus authored the gospel. When you provide us proof that Muhammed, Apollo, Buddha and Joe Smith are not who they say they are, we will show you proof that Jesus is not who he says he is.

>edit<
Also, just to clear up your confusion, the concept that a person is "innocent until proven guilty" doesn't really apply in this or any context because, obviously, we are not in a courtroom, nor are we a jury. We are evaluating the writings of the gospels on their own merits of credibility, internal consistency and accuracy with known events and we find the writings of the gospels to contain material which casts doubt on their authenticity and/or accuracy. At the same time, there are also conflicting accounts from OTHER sects of Christianity in which Jesus claims to be someone else entirely; for that matter, many early Christian sects beleive Jesus never actually existed in physical form. Once again, the burden of proof is on YOU to prove that the gospels are reliable, as well as it is on YOU to prove that the other writings are not reliable.

Can you do that, Sal? I don't think you can.

GermanHeretic

As far as I remember the gospel, he was found guilty and crucified for his crimes.

Ovazor

Sal, people have written you very detailled answers why cannot be considered as words of Jesus, but as what those who wrote later thought Jesus might have said. You have done nothing to answer them but closed your eyes tight shut, stuck your fingers deep into your ears and gone "I have not seen or heard any evidence."

Innocence and guilt has nothing to do with it. every case has to be judged by the same standards, and when the same standards are applied to the bible as to other ancient texts, the inescapable conclusion is that the gospels should not be taken, and were not written as, literal historical documents but as a religious narrative.

It's called objectivity and critical thinking, as opposed to blind faith.

Salieri

But you wouldn't anatogize those who claim he is telling the truth, if you believed his words yourself, would you? Therefore, you are still mocking Jesus, are you not?

Angrillori

Hiya Salieri!

Sorry i haven't been posting in a couple of days. With New Year's Day and Sunday there I was rather tied up.

I'm glad you started this thread, because it will be a great help narrowing down exactly where we've been having trouble communicating. Thanks!

You say we have no evidence that Jesus wasn't who he said he was.

We say that you have no evidence that he was who the bible writers said that he said he was.


I think this is a big point of breakdown. It becomes a question of whose position is more justified for use in developing a belief about who or what Jesus was.

From your perspective, you point out that in court, a person is assumed to tell the truth until you can show that they are commiting perjury. This is actually a strength of your case. In other words, innocent (of deceit) until proven guilty.


From our perspective, we point out that when a person makes a claim, especially a rather extraordinary one (being son of god is pretty extraordinary!) others are not obliged to believe it until the person making the claim gives them reason to believe him. In other words, we shouldn't believe anything we see on TV.

As you know, I think that the second position is justified in this case, and that the first doesn't universally apply to this situation, and where it might apply, is overwhelmed by philosophic concerns like Hume's fork, the burden of proof, and standards of evidence. But I would be willing to discuss this and see if I might be mistaken.

If you think this might be where our communication is breaking down a bit and want to explore it a bit farther, let me know. I think this would be a good avenue of discussion and might lead somewhere productive.

chapka

Your profile says you're a Christian. Therefore, aren't you mocking Buddha, Mohammed, and all the rest, denying their special status without them being "proven" guilty? If you can do it to all the prophets but one, why can't someone else to it to all of them?

Furthermore, "innocent until proven guilty" is a legal standard that has no relevance to anything. I don't think Jesus' Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights are being violated here. I also don't think it's reasonable to say that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Let's do a hypothetical. A friend of yours meets you for lunch. This friend is reasonably honest. He sits down and tells you, "The coolest thing just happened! I bought one of those scratch-off lottery games--I never do that!--and I won $100! Lunch is on me!" Would you believe him?

Now imagine that, instead, he were to tell you, "The coolest thing just happened! Yesterday, I met this guru with magic powers! I saw him touch a man who'd had a heart attack, and the man came back to life! Now I've joined his Movement, and quit my job, and he's going to teach me to heal all earthly diseases with the power of positive thinking!" Would you believe him? Would you join the Movement yourself? Or would this claim require additional evidence? Would you try to talk your friend out of joining up? If so, what would give you the right to judge the guru without proof that he's a fraud?

The issue is not what he does to people, it's what his followers do to people. This is an atheist message board. People here generally don't believe in any gods. If you come here pushing Jesus, you should expect people to push back. The same thing would happen if you were to come in here pushing any other god, as a quick glance at the Non-Abrahamic Religions forum would show you.

I've been known to mock the beliefs of followers of Zeus, yes. However, they're generally less pushy about me accepting Zeus as my personal lord and savior, so it doesn't come up that much. I've also been known to mock the beliefs of followers of Odin.

The only reason Christians tend to get it worse on this message board is because most posters here are surrounded by Christians. Many of them also used to be Christians.

Dragon

Burden of Proof, Salieri. Failing that, we haven't found anything that was written by Jesus. The closest thing to this, the Bible was (supposedly) written by the Apostles.