Did Jesus really exist?

[MG1962]

The problem with imaginary people is they don't leave evidence... You can't tell the imaginary people who leave no evidence from the real people who leave no evidence...

Was Johnny Appleseed based on a real person?

Well unless there has been some startling new research, I am not aware of any controversy surrounding John Chapman

 

[kmortis]

Are you aware of any links on the net about this new developement with the Trojan wars? I suspect it would be an interesting read

On the topic of Jesus, my point boils down to a balance of probabilty, that he existed in some form or other. Sure it might turn out that he was the creation of some fasting starved imagination, but there would need to be some pretty solid evidence to sway me

I don't know of any links off hand, but Radio lab did a story about paper findings in archeology. I think it was the "Detective" show. Here's the segment description

The Greatest Hits of Ancient Garbage

What can a 1,000 years worth of trash tell us about ancient human behavior? Dirk Obink, Director of research and professor of papyrology and classics at Oxford, tells us about the "motherload" of 2,000 year old paper found in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt in 1896 by two Oxford graduate students , B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt. A find so big, it’s beyond the scale of one human lifetime to translate it all. Deciphering fragments that look like cornflakes and sentences that break off right before they tell you want you need to know, Obink and his colleagues find enough secrets to rewrite the past. The “greatest hits of ancient garbage” may just change your mind about Jesus, porn, and what it means to be a hero. It might even convince you to change your tattoo.

 

[kmortis]

The problem with imaginary people is they don't leave evidence... You can't tell the imaginary people who leave no evidence from the real people who leave no evidence...

Was Johnny Appleseed based on a real person?

Um..yeah, John Chapman.


Damnit, MG beat me to it.

 

[MG1962]

I don't know of any links off hand, but Radio lab did a story about paper findings in archeology. I think it was the "Detective" show. Here's the segment description

Without drifting too far off topic, looks like it is linked to this

http://www.barrystrauss.com/pdfs/Strauss2_press_rls.pdf

I can smell an Amazon.com comming on lol

 

[Hindmost]

Actually, according to DOC, the Europeans brought peace to the Americas.

Reminds me of that Star Trek TNG episode..."The arsenal of freedom"

Peace through superior firepower.

Anyhow, we can go ask the Aztecs if they feel more at peace now..

glenn

 

[Foster Zygote]

Reminds me of that Star Trek TNG episode..."The arsenal of freedom"

Peace through superior firepower.

Anyhow, we can go ask the Aztecs if they feel more at peace now..

glenn

Not only did Europeans and their descendants wage bloody, genocidal wars against that indigenous peoples, but they fought some of the worlds bloodiest wars among themselves. DOC has yet to acknowledge that his statement was erroneous.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Funny, I assumed that was Raptor Witness's Halloween costume.

Oh, I almost forgot:

[qimg]http://www.riff.no/magasin/images/dimebag_yo.jpg[/qimg]

Blessed be the name of the Dude.

 

[articulett]

Um..yeah, John Chapman.


Damnit, MG beat me to it.

Thanks to both--

And that was one of my favorite radiolabs--highly recommended.

This is excellent:

http://richarddawkins.net/article,2057,The-Pagan-Christ,CBC-TV

 

[jjramsey]

Thanks to both--

And that was one of my favorite radiolabs--highly recommended.

This is excellent:

http://richarddawkins.net/article,2057,The-Pagan-Christ,CBC-TV

And for some balance: http://hnn.us/articles/6641.html

 

[MG1962]

And for some balance: http://hnn.us/articles/6641.html

Thanks - I got about halfway through the second part when the radar began to deploy

 

[DOC]

Not only does he {Jesus} fail to write a damn thing, his followers, the "mulitudes" fail to write anything either, or even impress any chronicler, traveler, poet, politician, solider, or merchant enough to mention them for a generation.

I would have to say Jesus got the job done no matter what He wrote or didn't write because here we are talking about (as most threads are) a Jewish carpenter 2000 years later. Not to mention coming off a multi - continent holiday celebrating His birth. One could say having done all that without writing anything is a miracle in itself.

And as far as His followers not writing anything for a generation. Why write stuff down when your with the man everyday. And the apostles couldn't exactly run down to 7-11 and buy paper and pens. Paper wasn't known about yet. And most of the people were illiterate anyway. But the eyewitnesses (Matthew and John the Apostle) and the doctor/historian Luke did eventually write down the important stuff. Just like ex-presidents eventually write down the important stuff after the fact.

And lets not forget Peter. Although he seemed more like a man of action then of literature:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85633

 

[amb]

Here is a site by Josh McDowell entitled "Evidence for the Resurrection":

http://www.leaderu.com/everystudent/easter/articles/josh2.html

Why are christian sites always quoted? There are a myriad nutural scholarship sites as well you know, that come to the opposite view.

 

[biomorph]

I would have to say Jesus got the job done no matter what He wrote or didn't write

There's no "or" involved, he wrote nothing, for the reasons you quote below....

because here we are talking about (as most threads are) a Jewish carpenter 2000 years later. Not to mention coming off a multi - continent holiday celebrating His birth. One could say having done all that without writing anything is a miracle in itself.

Nope, humans, not being in possesion of factual reality, opt for superstition, no miracles there.......

And as far as His followers not writing anything for a generation. Why write stuff down when your with the man everyday.

Humm, how about to ensure it is accurate for later generations? No sense in leaving to interpretation, whoops, thats just what happened.

And the apostles couldn't exactly run down to 7-11 and buy paper and pens. Paper wasn't known about yet. And most of the people were illiterate anyway. But the eyewitnesses (Matthew and John the Apostle) and the doctor/historian Luke did eventually write down the important stuff. Just like ex-presidents eventually write down the important stuff after the fact.

When did the Egyptians and the rest invent papyrus?

And lets not forget Peter. Although he seemed more like a man of action then of literature:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85633

We can easily forget the lot of them actually, Peter et al. Nothing to see here folks, its all myth. Why should we recall such uneducated claptrap?.

 

[amb]

I would have to say Jesus got the job done no matter what He wrote or didn't write because here we are talking about (as most threads are) a Jewish carpenter 2000 years later. Not to mention coming off a multi - continent holiday celebrating His birth. One could say having done all that without writing anything is a miracle in itself.

And as far as His followers not writing anything for a generation. Why write stuff down when your with the man everyday. And the apostles couldn't exactly run down to 7-11 and buy paper and pens. Paper wasn't known about yet. And most of the people were illiterate anyway. But the eyewitnesses (Matthew and John the Apostle) and the doctor/historian Luke did eventually write down the important stuff. Just like ex-presidents eventually write down the important stuff after the fact.

And lets not forget Peter. Although he seemed more like a man of action then of literature:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85633

Wrong wrong wrong. Mathew, John, and the apostles did not write anything down. Futhermore none were eyewitnesses to Jesus. Mark was the first gospel to be written around 40 years after Jesus was supposed to have lived, and he was no eyewitness either. I feel all were writing hearsay.

 

[grayman]

I would have to say Jesus got the job done no matter what He wrote or didn't write because here we are talking about (as most threads are) a Jewish carpenter 2000 years later. Not to mention coming off a multi - continent holiday celebrating His birth. One could say having done all that without writing anything is a miracle in itself.

And here we are using days of the week named for Germanic Gods. I would have to say that Woden, Thor, and Frigg got the job done.

And a tip of the hat to the Roman god Saturn for his Saturday. Not to mention a festival in his honor that was recently celebrated, albeit, under the name of another mythological figure.

And while we're applying DOC's logic to this, Mohamed got the job done as well, since his influence is spreading throughout the world, complete with believers willing to martyr themselves.



You know DOC, just because a large number of people believe something is true, does not make it a fact.

 

[Foster Zygote]

I would have to say Jesus got the job done no matter what He wrote or didn't write because here we are talking about (as most threads are) a Jewish carpenter 2000 years later. Not to mention coming off a multi - continent holiday celebrating His birth. One could say having done all that without writing anything is a miracle in itself.

DOC, I'm reasonably certain that you will continue to ignore the following question, but here it is anyway:

What do you have to say to the fact that others have started religious movements that have been immensely successful as well? I Jesus is validated by the fact that there are now Christians then are Siddhartha Gautama and Mohamed validated by the numbers of followers they currently have?

I've asked you this a number of times and you have never, to my knowledge, responded with a straight answer. Why is that?

 

[Frozenwolf150]

Looks like someone can't go a single day without resorting to the appeal to popularity fallacy. There are several reasons why this argument doesn't work.

Quoted from SOURCE 1 (only because I didn't feel like paraphrasing the argument again).
With updated figures from SOURCE 2 and wikipedia.

How can 2 billion people be wrong? Surely I can't claim that 2 billion people are wrong about Christianity? Well I do.

First off, categorizing all these competing sects and factions as one religion doesn't really work. There are over 1.1 billion Catholics, 250 million Orthodox Christians, 7 million Jehovah's Witnesses, 12 million Mor(m)ons and about 590 million Protestants. Many of these religions claim that the other is wrong in a "you're going to hell" sort of wrong. Protestants demand salvation through grace whereas Catholicism requires participation in the seven sacraments.

Using the argument of "popularity"; a Protestant Christian would have to consider converting to Roman Catholicism, Sunni Islam (1.3 billion) or Hinduism (900 million) all of which claim more adherents than Protestantism. Truth cannot be subservient to popularity.

Using the argument of "popularity," at various points in human history Ra, The Jade Emperor, Zeus and Jupiter have all been real gods. Egypt, China, Greece and Rome have all had powerful civilizations far exceeding Israel's meager mark on history. Truth cannot be subservient to popularity

As a side note - using this argument there is no way Judaism could ever be considered as the true religion. Jehovah was a tribal god owned by a small, below-average civilization that never really makes anything of itself in the thousands of years that it exists.

 

[amb]

Wrong wrong wrong. Mathew, John, and the apostles did not write anything down. Futhermore none were eyewitnesses to Jesus. Mark was the first gospel to be written around 40 years after Jesus was supposed to have lived, and he was no eyewitness either. I feel all were writing hearsay.

I forgot to mention that all the gospels were written by unknown authors. Luke did not write Luke, or Mathew write Mathew. It's too time comsuming to chase up the sources at the moment, but will do so if asked.

 

[DOC]

Certainly you realize the only reason that North America and South America celebrate Jesus' birth is because those good christians slaughtered all the native people and stole their land. Hmmm, to christians, all that land and resources, I suppose it would be a good reason to celebrate jesus.

Not too many wars now are there in North America, South America and Europe (All who celebrate Christmas). I imagine if the European countries never came over there would be at least 20 wars going on now in North and South America. Not to mention the human sacrifice and canibalism that might still be occurring.

And are you saying the atrocities that occurred on both sides are all Jesus' fault.

 

[DOC]

I forgot to mention that all the gospels were written by unknown authors. Luke did not write Luke, or Mathew write Mathew. It's too time comsuming to chase up the sources at the moment, but will do so if asked.

Alright I'll ask for a source. And if I was living in occupied Roman Empire lands I'd be kind of nervous putting my name on a Gospel that thumbs it nose at Roman gods by saying there is only one God. It was quite a dangerous place to be a Christian back then as 10 of the ll apostles who got killed would attest to.