spamandham

If there is evidence that Shakespeare never existed, is there some reason we should refrain from exploring that possibility?


...maybe, just maybe, it's makes sense to let reason take us where it will, independent of how that impacts our cherished preconceptions, or how it may force us to live with less certainty about the past.

No Robots

Please feel free to explore that. If you conduct your exploration on a public discussion forum, though, I think that you should expect some debate from those who have made up their minds on the subject.


Fine, fine. However, it is precisely reason that has led me to conclude that mythicism is hooey, and dangerous hooey at that.

2-J

Why? For the very reason that spamandham suggests, i.e. that it challenges notions you hold dear about the past? Because I don't see any other reason.

aa5874

Why do you not want to read what church writers wrote about Jesus? It is because you do not care about evidence, you are only interested in inventing Jesus from your imagination.

The Church writers claimed Jesus was a God who existed before the world was created,and born of a virgin called Mary, the evidence can be viewed in the writings of Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Tatian, Tertullian, Origen, Eusebius and others.

But, you are not interested in evidence, just your imagination.

And, the reason the NT does not make is because it is fiction.

Elijah

I'm interested in evidence; got any? You should be able to show how you came to your interpretation (whatever that actually may be) and why your interpretation is the correct one or at least try to.

aa5874

There is NO EVIDENCE for Jesus from any credible external source.There is nothing to imterpret. All you have is your imagination of him. The imagined JESUS.

Elijah

I'm talking about evidence that supports your understanding of Christianity.

aa5874

I understand that Jesus was presented as the son of the God of the Jews, born of a virgin called Mary, tempted by the devil on a high mountain where he could see the four corners of the earth, and when he was baptised, the Holy Ghost entered him like doves.

Further, I understand that Jesus was presented as being a miracle worker, using spit to make people see and raising the dead. He was transfigured and his face shone like the sun, at the same time prophets dead for hundreds of years came to life.

And, I understand that it is climed Jesus was crucified, died, resurrected and ascended to heaven through the clouds.

I was made to understand that there is no corroborative evidence for Jesus anywhere, today.

I therefore consider Jesus as fiction until there is credible evidence to substantiate the NT and church writings.

I understand Chritianity is based on the myth called JESUS.

What do you imagine?

Elijah

I don’t know what any of those concepts mean to you. I can only assume you interpret those terms in a literal, non rational, cartoonlike way. If that’s the case then you didn’t provide evidence that your interpretation is correct.

No corroborative evidence should be expected of a peasant from 2000 years ago, just a skeptic’s cop out to ask for any.

Doug Shaver

I didn't say they disprove species. I said they disprove your assertion that species exist in nature. Species is a mental construct, invented by humans for human intellectual purposes.

If it were a phenomenon of nature, then for any ring species, it would be possible to identify, on some objective basis, the point within a ring where species A was on one side and species B was on the other side. But this is not possible, and so species do not exist in nature.

The fuzziness is not in the term. It is in the phenomena that the term was invented to describe.