David B

I suppose that arguing that if you believe in a historical Jesus means that you are not an atheist is equivalent to arguing that if you believe in a historical Mohammed, you are not a Christian.

David B

Revisionist

Thanks for answering a question I didn't ask.

mens_sana

It does sound as if God were a tad displeased over the crucifixion of his Son, doesn't it? But that brings into question the salvation through the cross theology, oops! And, of course, this was all God's plan, wasn't it?

mens_sana

Exactly!

Chuckling Atheist

I didn't claim he was a Jew. I heard on the Penn & Teller bible episode of Bullshit! that he was crucified.

However, here's a source that states that he nailed to the cross, but that he didn't die. It's in the free preview section.

Thomas II

In addition,the whole concept of human sacrifice is preposterous and archaic.
If we take into consideration that the attempted sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham was to be the LAST of these sacrifices, and that the intervention of some angel, or whatever, saying "Enough is enough of these human sacrifices", the sacrifice of Jesus is AGAIN a throwback to those human sacrifices which are supposed to be outlawed...
Maybe jesus was expecting that same angel who saved Isaac to show up and tell Jesus "Ok,ok, you have proven yourself! Go home and take a few days of R&R,you've done good!" But the angel never showed up this time around...
What happened with Abraham was a "death of his ego" which is still to this day the real deal. This is the actual sacrifice,not the bodily harm. And it is not that we sacrifice ego to the gods. We sacrifice the clutches of ego to achieve a grander vision of the whole picture, a wider perspective in our consciousness,which ego tends to limit through it's self protecting boundaries.
So this whole concept of Jesus as a human sacrifice is barbaric and even in contradiction to the "covenant" that God established with Abraham, so even for the believers it is out of sinc with religious law...

mens_sana

Actually, human sacrifice was practiced in Judah down into the time of Ezekiel and Jeremiah, not as an everyday occurrence but common enough that it was unexceptionable (barring Ezekiel & Jeremiah ).

Morgana

Doesn't the issue boil down to what you mean by an HJ?

If you mean a man with the name Jesus, or a man whose teachings were interpreted a couple hundred years later to talk about brotherly love, or a man who was crucified by the Romans for being leader of the nascent Christian cult (or some other cult), I don't see how any of these are in conflict with being an atheist.

If you mean all of the above plus being resurrected, you will probably want to come up with an explanation that is consistent with atheism before you try to argue the point.

I think it's pretty much unknowable and irrelevant whether there was any actual person (or persons) behind the Jesus myth.

orac

I believe in a (Recent) Historical L. Ron Hubbard, but I'm not sure that qualifies me as believing in the thetans and all the other crap.

While I don't personally believe in a historical Jesus (unless you count all the millions of Mexicans and other assorted nationalities who've been called Jesus over the last few thousand years), I could theoretically be persuaded to believe in such a person without accepting that the person is actually the biologicial offspring of a non-material deity.

"True Atheists" could be persauded to believe in a non-divine historical Jesus by poor logic and pathetic attempts at evidence without ceasing to be atheists, because atheist isn't actually a synonym for "intelligent and rational person", and the reason for a person's lack of belief doesn't affect the fact of the lack of belief.

Although, to be fair, I would have a cynical suspision that another liar for christ had appeared, if particular sources were actually presented as evidence.


What about Judas? For roughly 2000 years that name has been a synonym for "traitor", but if you take the bible literally then Jesus knew beforehand what he was going to do, and it had to be done in order for Gibson's movie profits to be available. Also, it raises the question of why Jesus didn't just slap Judas upside the head then turn himself in, thus sparing one more soul.

speaknoevil

Wow, you might want to tone down the arrogance a little. And maybe provide some support for your assertions.