aa5874

Well, you need to provide evidence for your probabilty. Your belief about Jesus is of no value whatsoever until you produce information from antiquity.

Please tell us where you got your information from about your Jesus.

Is it from your imagination?

The Jesus in the NT was multiple-attested to be born without sexual union, resurrected and ascended.

Transient

That's a little harsh is it not?
He did say that if he existed that he probably wasn't much like the tales told about him.
No-one will ever know for sure what the hell happened back then unless someone invents a time travel machine.
No-one can prove that what they tend to believe about the past is in fact true - no-one.
It will always be about perceptions and probabilities (not mathematical ones).
That is one of the reasons I don't like to see Mountainman treated too harshly for his views because, whilst they may seem a bit extreme, there also may be a great deal of truth in them, who knows?
Maybe there was some sort of "Jesus" figure that the tales came from, maybe they were all made up (total myth), or maybe it is all true. Who the hell can say for sure and who the hell can back up their belifs with facts to prove it - no-one.

aa5874

Well, if no-one can prove anything why say that there probably was an historical Jesus.

Now, however the Jesus stories eventually came to be written may have some significance but there are canonised books presented with information of Jesus and this creature was described as the offspring of the Holy Ghost, resurrected and ascended with multiple attestations.

Such a creature is not probable, but implausible.


Why are facts harsh?

You cannot support a belief with another belief, you must first produce evidence to support your initial belief.

delusional

[QUOTE=Transient;5779138]You could do worse than acquaint yourself with the methodology of an cient history. After X thousand years there is far too little evidence around for you to reject what there is available without good reason. Otherwise the whole project of historiography becomes impossible, and you are free to indulge whatever fantasies you like (such as the non-existence of Jesus - even in the face of a whole pile of evidence suggesting otherwise).

Your trouble is that you think the really really sophisticated alternative to uncritically believing everything (fundamentalist Christian) is to uncritically disbelieve everything (fundamentalist atheist). You may have changed your alleigance, but you haven't changed your mindset.

If your response to every piece of evidence which tells against your case is, "Oh that is fiction," or "Oh, that eas written in the tenth century," or "Oh that was forged." How is that different from the fundamentalists response to evidence telling in favour of evolution: "Oh that was put there by satan," or, "Oh that was put there by God to test us," or, "Oh carbon dating has been shown to be unreliable"? The answer is that there is no difference, they are both intellectually dishonest.

Toto

Competing hobby horses, like Monty Pythonesque Knights on their toys charging at each other.

The methodology of ancient history does not support you, delusional. There is not a "whole pile" of evidence suggesting that Jesus existed. Fundamentalist atheist is just a term of abuse that carries no information, except that you feel the need to insult someone.

Is there a reason to leave this thread open?

delusional

Fandamentalist atheist is as meaningful as fundamentalist Christian, and it refers to the same phenomenon:

"If your response to every piece of evidence which tells against your case is, "Oh that is fiction," or "Oh, that eas written in the tenth century," or "Oh that was forged." How is that different from the fundamentalists response to evidence telling in favour of evolution: "Oh that was put there by satan," or, "Oh that was put there by God to test us," or, "Oh carbon dating has been shown to be unreliable"? The answer is that there is no difference, they are both intellectually dishonest."

Any inconvenient evidence has to be explained away. Furthermore, there is no way you can win an argument like that - and it is not because they have got a strong case.

Toto

Please identify your quote. Which is silly - perhaps even a parody?

A copy of a copy of a document that was written anonymously and freely interpolated is not the sort of "evidence" that is comparable to a carbon dated fossil.

delusional

If you want an example of what I mean:

"You may need to add one hundred years to your assumed date of writing for the gospel of Mark."

There is no reason at all to believe that is the case, and if he did a little research, instead of just coming out with what he would like to be the case, he would know that the date I gave (60-65) was the generally accepted date amongst scholars; except perhaps for a few conservatives, who put it at around 40.




Try the well known passage from Tacitus. There is no reason at all to suppose that it is a forgery; in fact there is good reason for supposing it genuine. How many Christians do you think would describe their beliefs as, " a most mischievous superstition", (to quite Tacitus)? In fact the vast majority of scholars do regard it as genuine, but that doesn't suit the agenda of Jesus mythicists, and therefore it must be a forgery.

And to repeat, if you want to write the history of antiquity at all, then you must come to terms with the fact that there is not going to be much documentary evidence available, What there is must be accepted as genuine, unless there is good reason for rejecting it. For example, apart from a few fragments, the earliest evidence we have for the life of Alexander the Great comes from a time more than 200 years after his death. What would happen if historians didn't give that the benefit of the doubt?

The earliest evidence we have for Jesus is the letters of St Paul, written about 25 years after his death (and yes they can be accurately dated).

As another poster said on here a few days ago, be very wary of people who try to rubbish primary sources.

Toto

You are dodging my question of where the quote came from.

And there is a case for the well known passage from Tacitus being a forgery. It relies on much more that simple inconvenience, and I don't think that everyone who sees it as a forgery is actually a mythicist.

You are wrong. There are few things that you can be so definitely wrong about, but this is one of them.

There is no such rule in ancient historical studies; I challenge you to find any reputable historian who says that any ancient document must be accepted unless there is a good reason to reject it. The only people who make this claim are Christian apologists trying to misuse history to support their dogma.

What would happen? Nothing. No one thinks that their eternal salvation depends on whether Alexander lived or not.

And if you check the sources on Alexander, there were contemporary reports that have not survived, but which were used as sources for the surviving reports. The evidence for Alexander is many times better than that for Jesus. For Jesus, there were no identifiable eyewitnesses. No contemporary monuments, no political boundaries shifted, no enemies reported his movements, etc. etc.

Transient

Using your "logic" a mormon would stay a mormon, a hindu would stay a hindu, a muslim would stay a muslim etc etc etc.
If we are to accept stuff as true unless we have "evidence" against it then we would believing aliens have landed, 9/11 was done by the US govt etc etc.