Overstating the case for Athiesm.

[rsb]

Let's get this straight..

If I claim that the Paul Bunyan and his Big Blue Ox story is just a fable and not historical, how much is my position eroded by the finding of a Canadian genealogy that mentions a man named Paul C. Bunyan 1788 - 1849? How much does it change the debate if the Paul Bunyan believers conceded that the Ox wasn't really blue? If Paul was huge, but not really 40 feet tall, maybe only 12 or 15?

Well if you found a genealogy that Paul C Bunyan existed, and he was a lumberjack, I would suspect he told a lot of tall tales and was a good liar if he was in fact the source of the fables. However there is no comparing a genealogy to the bible, the genealogy is way more trustworthy However none of this is any sort of an argument against some guy living at one time or many people who later formed the composite of a self serving myth.

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There are numerous passages about guys named "Jesus" and "Jesus Christ" in the Old Testament. Those particular guys probably existed. However, the Jesus Christ character in the New Testament was most likely a complete fabrication of Paul based upon the earlier characters who had similar attributes.

The NT Jesus is further tainted because the guys who wrote the Gospels about him did it decades after his alleged crucifixion. At that time the Jews were in full revolt mode against the Romans and getting killed and enslaved by the hundreds of thousands. So the writers most likely incorporated tales involving the three main rebel leaders into their fairy tale about a guy who would restore the glory of the Jews when they were collaborators with the Assyrians and Babylonians.

We do know, or should know, that the many tales where the Jesus character is talking to one or two characters, such as Satan, are pure BS. Who was there to record their conversations and activities? The same is true of the Islamic hadiths involving Mohammed and his buddies. The writers made them all up hundreds of years later.

Religious fairy tales are BS. But they do present ideas for coping with the many trials and tribulations of everyday human life. There are no gods, devils, demons, angels, spirits, ghosts (holy or otherwise), resurrections, heavens, or hells other than the ones each person creates himself. When you die you will be forgotten unless you have done something noteworthy. And then future generations will turn you into a myth that will not resemble what you really were.

I am with you on the spirit of the post, however I think you have just a couple details wrong. There is no mention I am aware of of "jesus" in the OT as written by Jews, however the whole thing probably was edited later on in history on both the Jewish and Christian sides. I go by the dead sea scrolls because they are the oldest radiocarbon dated artifacts that are not really subject to revisionist crap. But really none of those words are evidence for anything specific. How about starting with the basic laws(whatever, facts) of physics, chemistry, and biology instead of fairy tales.

The oldest torah is about as old as the historical christ and the oldest bibles, not older. The events in Masada are further hard core historical evidence for early jewish nationalist movements and fanatics. These obviously build on and support the general blah blah blah one will come who will rah rah rah texts. So bottom line, I believe the movie "the life of brian" is probably a pretty accurate portrait of the historical jesus as our know history is consistent with, and perhaps the Jewish tradition is not as old as it is sold to be.