Self-Mutation

In order to prove something true, one must only need find one thing that refutes everything else.

Here is my one verse proving to everyone that Jesus existed on Earth and only a FOOL would claim the Gospels didn't mean to portray him as historical:

But Pilate answered them, saying, Will ye that I release unto you the King of the Jews?

10For he knew that the chief priests had delivered him for envy.

11But the chief priests moved the people, that he should rather release Barabbas unto them.

12And Pilate answered and said again unto them, What will ye then that I shall do unto him whom ye call the King of the Jews?

13And they cried out again, Crucify him.

14Then Pilate said unto them, Why, what evil hath he done? And they cried out the more exceedingly, Crucify him.

15And so Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified.

If Jesus ONLY EXISTED in a SPIRITUAL REALM, this passage makes no sense. It's OBVIOUS to anyone with a brain that the writers viewed Jesus as a historical person.

Unless you want to argue Pilate had the power to go into the "spiritual realm" with Jesus! :rolling:

Matt Stone

And after 2000 years or so, you and your religious friends are still failing at finding that one thing.

Well, the Greeks "really" thought their gods were "historical" persons, as did the Egyptians, the Byzantines, the Assyrians, the Sumerians, the Norse, and everyone else with imaginary friends running amok causing no end of strife for humanity.

Because someone believes a thing does not make it true. Because someone wrote about a thing, believing it real, does not make it so. Otherwise I'm going to go write a story about how I'm invisible, rich, can fly, and all religious people magically and mysteriously acknowledge me as their one, true god, bowing down and offering me all their hot Asian girls as sacrifices to me.

I suspect the chances of that making it come true is just about equal to anything in the bible proving that Jesus was anything other than the coalesced characters from multiple pre-existing mythologies, no more real or true than anything else existing at the time.

Grab hold of reality and hang on. It's a much wilder ride than reading fairy tales and hoping beyond hope that eventually they'll come true.

Baalazel

Your verse (or five or six verses) proves nothing about the substance of Jesus. When will you learn that what people thought about Jesus or what they said about Jesus offers no evidence as to who or what Jesus was. This is especially true if the words were writen decades after the events they claim to reveal.

That there was controversy even at the time as to the nature of Jesus can't be denied. Even the Gospels offer details which seem to question his nature.

To defend a Gospel passage with the apologetic that it makes sense one way but not the other is to overlook the nonsense which pervades the Gospels.

Baal

ughaibu

What's obvious, from the New Testament, is that if there was a Jesus that guy was either a nut or a scam artist running a cliched doomsday cult.

Self-Mutation

jesus was one of the greatest moral teachers who ever lived. he has trasnformed billions upon billions of people's lives.

If it was all just a hoax written by a person, this person inadvertently established himself as the greatest moral teacher and transformed billions of peoples lives without even realizing it!

I would love to go back in time to the first century and meet this "anonymous person," wouldn't you?!?!?!

ughaibu

No. I think christianity is the worst disaster in human history and the sooner its victims recover, the better.

Switch89

What if the gospels were intended to be allegorical fiction?

Then they might take place in an earthly setting, but Jesus would not have ever existed because the stories weren't intended to be true.

It makes sense when you think about it: Why would Pilate have been reluctant to crucify Jesus? Why would he have appealed to the crowd of Jews as if he had no choice in the matter (in the choice between putting Jesus or Barabbas to death)? Keep in mind that Pilate was a bloodthirsty Roman who had slaughtered hundreds of Jews.

Stories such as the one above allow us to know that we are dealing with fiction. The fact that the stories have symbolic meanings (as demonstrated by Randel Helms in "Gospel Fictions" and Richard Carrier) make the fiction allegorical.

Baalazel

Wrong as usual. It was the church founded by Paul that transformed billions upon billions of peoples lives. Most often by the sword, forced ignorance, banned knowledge, burned heretics, fake relics, confiscatory taxation, theological maleficence, social and political rapine, denial of reproductive freedom, the birth of billions who could not be housed or fed. So your "greatest moral leader" is the source of suffering for the untold billions whose lives you claim he transformed. But then poverty, sickness, and early death are transformative events I suppose.
We just dealt with that didn't we.
At least then you would some grasp of how the stories originated. My bet is it wouldn't strengthen your faith.

Baal

cgordon

S-M, do you know what a meme is?

Kapyong

Gday,

The claim that it was a 'hoax written by one person' is NOT what sceptics generally claim (only very few crackpots do that.) Please pay attention.

This mistake is endemic to apologists, it's either :
TRVE
or
a HOAX.

As if there are no other possibilities.

Tell us, Self-Mutation -
is Shakespeare true or a hoax?
is The Golden Ass true or a hoax?
is Harry Potter true or a hoax?


K.