spin

You've failed dismally to show any tangible evidence for Jesus, so it doesn't augur well for the existence of those others.


spin

Chaucer

And you're an obvious mythicist pretending not to be. Now THAT's shameful. I don't see you taking off after any mythicists here in the same Jihadist way at all. We'll see if your response here shows that you can dish it out by the cartload but you can't take it. Anyone posting TWO diatribes against the opponent's one post is obviously not serious and is just going for the stalking.

Chaucer

Doug Shaver

I haven't gotten around to researching Buddha or Solon yet, but here is my analysis comparing the evidence for Jesus and Socrates: http://dougshaver.com/christ/socrates/socrates.html.

Chaucer

You write:



"That is not to say that the evidence is insufficient to justify believing that Jesus was a real person. There are some skeptics who say there is no evidence for Jesus, but I think they are very wrong. There is evidence for his existence. Reasonable people may disagree about how good the evidence is, but it does exist, and even weak evidence can justify belief if there is no contrary evidence. I am personally persuaded that there is some contrary evidence, but lots of reasonable people think I'm wrong about that, and that's OK."



This is the first bloody time I've seen a mythicist man enough to acknowledge that there is such a thing as varying degrees of evidence after all --

T H A N K
Y O U !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As for the conclusion that the evidence for Socrates is somewhat stronger than for Jesus, I have no quarrel with that either, and I'm hardly surprised at such a conclusion. I feel that all four -- Solon, Buddha, Socrates Jesus -- more likely existed than not. But I do feel that the level of evidence averages down (from strongest to weakest) with

Buddha

Socrates

Jesus

Solon

in that order.

Cordially,

Chaucer

spin

Ignorance is no defence from an accusation of stupidity. You're now just acting as if you've dropped your christian cue cards.

I challenge you to search the archives to find evidence for your false accusation. When you can't find any, will you apologize?

Do I need to? They know my views.

You come here and spout against the folly of mythicism by lamely defending historicism. When challenged, you don't defend your historicism (hmm, why not?). You get... well, umm... upset for being caught with your panties down and then you flap. Can't you do better than that?

Umm, you get irritated because I post two separate comments on two different comments of yours which are in the same post. Oh, I am sorry. Perhaps I should have followed your unwritten rules and put those two separate comments in the one post. Anything to stop you from doing what you've been asked to do: defend your position in a scholarly manner. Your non-response just shows what you've got: nothing.


spin

show_no_mercy

Heh.

What do you think "Joshua (Jesus) Christ" means?

aa5874

The poster claiming there is evidence for a human only Jesus is completely in error, there is no known extant evidence for a human only Jesus anywhere, there are only unsubstantiated claims.

If there was evidence for an human only Jesus all the HJers would have posted the evidence long, long time ago and everyday they would show the world the evidence.

You have nothing as evidence for a human only Jesus and will never post any evidence.

And further, no-one will ever post any evidence.

Kapyong

Gday,

What?
A list "OUTSIDE of Jesus"?
I assume you mean "apart from Jesus".

Which is exactly what I gave you - a list of figures other than Jesus, whose existence has been doubted.

Which shows that your claim of an inconsistency in doubt is false - it is NOT true that only Jesus' existance is doubted.

(But now you try and imply that I went of track? When YOU conspicuously avoided the point I brought up? Pfft!)


Anyone following this thread will see you have avoided answering your mistake. There is NO inconsistency here at all - every ancient figure is evaluated carefully.


Right.
So there is a CONSISTENT sceptical approach to ancient figures - all are evaluated with scepticism.

Which is the opposite of your claim of an inconsistent approach which doubts ONLY Jesus' existance.

So, what about the meaning of Jesus' name, hmmm?


K.

gurugeorge

Speaking as an idiosyncratic, amateur mythicist, I have to say I have no qualms whatsoever about doubting the existence of any historical character.

As someone with an interest in Eastern religions too, I can tell you that there's a fair amount of scholarly doubt about the existence of such famous figures as Laozi, and even Gotama Siddhartha is not immune to some serious doubts about his historicity.

As I see it, the historian ought to be prepared to pursue anomalies to the death, if that's what's warranted, and certainly ought to be easily able to at least entertain doubt about the existence of any historical character, without getting flustered either way.

Existential commitement ought to await evidence, and if the evidence isn't reasonably strong, then it's ok not to know. We ought to be stingy with belief. That seems to me to be the empirical spirit.

Chaucer

The problem is that, here and elsewhere, most mythicists -- most -- never even remotely suggest they may not know for sure. Most -- most -- maintain instead that "OBVIOUSLY JESUS IS A TOTAL FICTION AND EVERYONE WHO ISN'T A WORTHLESS PIECE OF APOLOGIST HUMAN GARBAGE MUST SEE THAT RIGHT AWAY AND BOW DOWN AND KISS OUR MOONING ASSES AND OUR MUDDY BOOTS IN SHEER ADORATION OF OUR NEVER BEING WRONG AND OUR SHEER INFALLIBILITY -- SIEG HEIL".

Dogma anyone?

Chaucer