(August 24, 2010 at 6:37 pm)tackattack Wrote:

(August 23, 2010 at 3:51 pm)tackattack Wrote:

Well firstly IrH9 is a Muslim, therefore I do presume he acknowledges Jesus' existence, it's a matter of tautology whether he's the son of God or simply a man. At the very basest he is presumed to be at least a man with insight into God's nature, from a theist standpoint. From the atheist standpoint you're talking about he is purely fictional, and I can understand that. That is the very reason why, if you are looking for Jesus, it's illogical that you don't at least start your search with theism, because some atheists don't even believe he existed. I have been to a Muslim country and can envision the other 2 scenarios quite easily. But I see no flaw in the logic that to find something you must start looking where that thing is, not where it isn't. If you disagree then please explain so I can understand your views better.

Atheists do not believe that Jesus did not exist. They accept evidence for or against something. Believing is accepting something as factual without evidence, which is irrational in itself.

It is irrational to ask people who believe in ghosts whether or not ghosts exist. At the very least it is redundant. The answer is yes by definition. Likewise if you ask a theist if Jesus/god exists, or existed, you are asking them a rhetorical question.

There is no evidence that Jesus ever existed. There are plenty of historical records of how the emperor Constantine, followed by Augustine, and the other fathers of Christianity created and shaped Christianity as it largely exists today regardless of sect. Jerome created the Vulgate (the first bible). They set the time of Jesus 3 centuries before their time and the setting in a remote village of Palestine both in an effort to add mystery and create the false impression of veracity.

Information at the time was a privilege that few enjoyed and those contemporaries can be forgiven for believing the silly stories. Especially, when declaring oneself a non-believer meant a sure death sentence. Today on the other hand, information is the easiest thing to obtain. That is why religious groups spend so much money in misinformation in order to protect their investment. The opinions in this forum can be used as catalysts for research, but they are not on themselves nearly adequate to learn anything in depth.

Any person with an open mind and average intelligence can easily find out any factual information available. Anyone who starts with the premise that every thing he/she thinks he/she knows may be false will learn at an ever increasing rate. Anyone who starts researching with an assumption will have limited success in research. Believing that Jesus existed and then looking for evidence that it existed is a laughable research strategy in research circles. The question is who says that Jesus existed? Then ask is the name fitting to the setting? In this case it is not. What is the evidence? When you think you found the answer, then you need to ask, “what was my biggest mistake in my research? What have I overlooked?” and further investigate any thing that is remotely suspicious, unsound, or not plausible.

Theists fool themselves into the following logic: There is no strong evidence that Jesus did not exist. Therefore, he must have existed.

I hope this helps.

The question of where Jesus The Body, is now can be addressed in various ways. If we assume that the claim made after his death by many of his loyal followers, and converted into a holy story in the so-called New Testament, which, in 325 AD became the church law of the Roman Empire (the Nicaea Creed), then his rejuvenated body went up to heaven. If heaven was not just outer space, a vacuum where Jesus would quickly be freeze dried like a “meal ready to eat,” we should consider the possibility that heaven really is a place, maintained the all-powerful deity, just like the Earth. Since, however, we have now explored our own solar system pretty thoroughly and haven’t found either such a place of the living Jesus, I postulate that heaven was and is not moving, but is stationary and still located where Jesus hopped off about 2,000 years ago.
We also now know that our home planet is spinning on its own axis, traveling around the sun once a year, and, along with the whole solar system, moving on a great spiral arm around the core of our galaxy, the Milky Way, heaven could now be quite some distance back behind us. One article on line claims that, considering all the complex motions involved, we are moving at the breath taking speed of 574,585 miles per hour! (http://www.thelivingmoon.com/41pegasus/0...Earth.html}. At that speed, we could well be 1¾ light years away from heaven and poor old lonely Jesus. That’s about three and a half years for him to get your prayers and get back to you at the speed of light. I hope that when the Rapture takes the selected faithful off to heaven, that god provides better bathroom facilities than were in the Astrodome in the days after Hurricane Katrina.

(August 27, 2010 at 6:15 pm)RachelSkates Wrote: Minimalist:

EXACTLY!! ('Maybe"). And most likely.....NOT.

He is a creation of many myths and stories. Like if we mixed Santa Claus, Eater Bunny, and Tooth Fairy -------and people believed the final product!

It seems bizarre to me that there is no clear cut mention of Jesus by even his relatives.

Are we to believe some guy raised from the dead in the middle of a VERY literate Roman society and it is not till a couple hundred of years later (yes it was....not 70) that someone finally says, "Oh that guy that raised from the dead really did.......it was not just a story. Oh, and he's god."

Please.

The earliest reference to "Christians" ( but not to any "Jesus" ) is Pliny the Younger's letter to Trajan concerning his investigations into what he considered a subversive group while he was serving as governor of Bythinia in Asia Minor. Pliny was appointed governor (legatus augusti) in 110 and died in 112 AD so this gives us a short window of time for this letter. In it, he mentions that he dealt with a group who called themselves Christians and who were holding secret meetings in defiance of the law against such meetings. ( Note, they were not arrested for being "christians", per se.)

Quote:They asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food--but ordinary and innocent food. Even this, they affirmed, they had ceased to do after my edict by which, in accordance with your instructions, I had forbidden political associations. Accordingly, I judged it all the more necessary to find out what the truth was by torturing two female slaves who were called deaconesses. But I discovered nothing else but depraved, excessive superstition.

Questioning them under torture failed to reveal any mention of a resurrection or an execution by a Roman official, or a virgin birth.....yada, yada, yada. It seems unlikely that Pliny would have failed to mention such tidbits considering the mundane nonsense that he actually reported. As we can be reasonably certain that Pliny was just learning about christians (hold that thought) it seems as if he had no preconceived notions about them. Instead, he records that they sing a hymn to Christ ( as to a god, or as if he were a god - the translation of the Latin "quasi" works in either case. This is not the same as saying that Christ WAS god. Presumably the ideas had not fully coalesced at such an early point in time.

There is a school which holds that the Pliny reference is a forgery but, this makes no sense. If someone were going to forge something they would make it measure up to the doctrines they were pushing. Pliny also comments

Quote:Others named by the informer declared that they were Christians, but then denied it, asserting that they had been but had ceased to be, some three years before, others many years, some as much as twenty-five years. They all worshipped your image and the statues of the gods, and cursed Christ.

This is completely at odds with the bullshit story that 4th century christians were putting out. This was a time when they were fabricating the stories of mass martyrdom and how early Christians won over the Romans by the steadfast belief in the face of death. What forger would go through the trouble of writing something which says "Fuck jesus - Hail Caesar!" Had Pliny said " rather than sacrifice to your image they all preferred death and torture " THAT would be a typical xtian forgery.

In any case, Pliny's report is not a "history" or an editorial. It is a real time report. He seems to know next to nothing about xtians prior to arrival in Asia Minor and in his earlier career Pliny had been a military tribune with the 3'd Legion stationed in Syria. He was not unfamiliar with the Near East. Further, he had an extensive legal career in Rome but never seems to know anything about xtian trials. Finally, neither he nor Trajan gives the slightest hint that xtians were implicated as arsonists in the burning of Rome. Trajan's reply is mild. It does not suggest any rancor at a group which the later forgery of Tacitus' work would try to convince us had tried to burn down the capitol a mere 40 years before.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, here.

(August 27, 2010 at 6:57 pm)Quest of knowledge Wrote:

---

(August 24, 2010 at 6:37 pm)tackattack Wrote:

(August 23, 2010 at 3:51 pm)tackattack Wrote:

Well firstly IrH9 is a Muslim, therefore I do presume he acknowledges Jesus' existence, it's a matter of tautology whether he's the son of God or simply a man. At the very basest he is presumed to be at least a man with insight into God's nature, from a theist standpoint. From the atheist standpoint you're talking about he is purely fictional, and I can understand that. That is the very reason why, if you are looking for Jesus, it's illogical that you don't at least start your search with theism, because some atheists don't even believe he existed. I have been to a Muslim country and can envision the other 2 scenarios quite easily. But I see no flaw in the logic that to find something you must start looking where that thing is, not where it isn't. If you disagree then please explain so I can understand your views better.

Atheists do not believe that Jesus did not exist. They accept evidence for or against something. Believing is accepting something as factual without evidence, which is irrational in itself.

It is irrational to ask people who believe in ghosts whether or not ghosts exist. At the very least it is redundant. The answer is yes by definition. Likewise if you ask a theist if Jesus/god exists, or existed, you are asking them a rhetorical question.

There is no evidence that Jesus ever existed. There are plenty of historical records of how the emperor Constantine, followed by Augustine, and the other fathers of Christianity created and shaped Christianity as it largely exists today regardless of sect. Jerome created the Vulgate (the first bible). They set the time of Jesus 3 centuries before their time and the setting in a remote village of Palestine both in an effort to add mystery and create the false impression of veracity.

Information at the time was a privilege that few enjoyed and those contemporaries can be forgiven for believing the silly stories. Especially, when declaring oneself a non-believer meant a sure death sentence. Today on the other hand, information is the easiest thing to obtain. That is why religious groups spend so much money in misinformation in order to protect their investment. The opinions in this forum can be used as catalysts for research, but they are not on themselves nearly adequate to learn anything in depth.

Any person with an open mind and average intelligence can easily find out any factual information available. Anyone who starts with the premise that every thing he/she thinks he/she knows may be false will learn at an ever increasing rate. Anyone who starts researching with an assumption will have limited success in research. Believing that Jesus existed and then looking for evidence that it existed is a laughable research strategy in research circles. The question is who says that Jesus existed? Then ask is the name fitting to the setting? In this case it is not. What is the evidence? When you think you found the answer, then you need to ask, “what was my biggest mistake in my research? What have I overlooked?” and further investigate any thing that is remotely suspicious, unsound, or not plausible.

Theists fool themselves into the following logic: There is no strong evidence that Jesus did not exist. Therefore, he must have existed.

I hope this helps.

---

I did not say atheists don't believe Jesus existed, I thought you were speaking specifically of those that don't. There are some who do and some who don't, agreed. Believing is not accepting something as factual without evidence, belief is accepting something as true. It commonly is accepted that truth requires objective evidence therefore belief would have objective evidence supporting it. Faith is accepting something as true without objective evidence. Blind faith would then be accepting something as true despite of evidence or with zero evidence.

While I agree on your researching guidelines the rest of the post smacks of just as much bias as asking a theist if Jesus exists. Comments like "silly" , "of course", "fool" are not as unbiased as you're attempting to appear to be. Your generalizations of all theists also are a detriment to any objective thinking. I accept religious documents as indicative evidence, without a body or burial site or effigies to great men. I claim it's likely that a man named Jesus existed, if he did there are stories about his life. I hope this helps

(August 30, 2010 at 11:30 am)tackattack Wrote: I did not say atheists don't believe Jesus existed, I thought you were speaking specifically of those that don't. There are some who do and some who don't, agreed. Believing is not accepting something as factual without evidence, belief is accepting something as true. It commonly is accepted that truth requires objective evidence therefore belief would have objective evidence supporting it. Faith is accepting something as true without objective evidence. Blind faith would then be accepting something as true despite of evidence or with zero evidence.

Kudos given for that explanation of faith.

Quote:I claim it's likely that a man named Jesus existed, if he did there are stories about his life.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Herakles/labors.html

Quote:The Labors of Hercules

The goddess Hera, determined to make trouble for Hercules, made him lose his mind. In a confused and angry state, he killed his own wife and children.

When he awakened from his "temporary insanity," Hercules was shocked and upset by what he'd done. He prayed to the god Apollo for guidance, and the god's oracle told him he would have to serve Eurystheus, the king of Tiryns and Mycenae, for twelve years, in punishment for the murders.

As part of his sentence, Hercules had to perform twelve Labors, feats so difficult that they seemed impossible. Fortunately, Hercules had the help of Hermes and Athena, sympathetic deities who showed up when he really needed help. By the end of these Labors, Hercules was, without a doubt, Greece's greatest hero.

His struggles made Hercules the perfect embodiment of an idea the Greeks called pathos, the experience of virtuous struggle and suffering which would lead to fame and, in Hercules' case, immortality.

So, you accept the stories about "Hercules" too?

(August 30, 2010 at 11:30 am)tackattack Wrote:

(August 27, 2010 at 6:57 pm)Quest of knowledge Wrote:

---

(August 24, 2010 at 6:37 pm)tackattack Wrote:

(August 23, 2010 at 3:51 pm)tackattack Wrote:

Well firstly IrH9 is a Muslim, therefore I do presume he acknowledges Jesus' existence, it's a matter of tautology whether he's the son of God or simply a man. At the very basest he is presumed to be at least a man with insight into God's nature, from a theist standpoint. From the atheist standpoint you're talking about he is purely fictional, and I can understand that. That is the very reason why, if you are looking for Jesus, it's illogical that you don't at least start your search with theism, because some atheists don't even believe he existed. I have been to a Muslim country and can envision the other 2 scenarios quite easily. But I see no flaw in the logic that to find something you must start looking where that thing is, not where it isn't. If you disagree then please explain so I can understand your views better.

Atheists do not believe that Jesus did not exist. They accept evidence for or against something. Believing is accepting something as factual without evidence, which is irrational in itself.

It is irrational to ask people who believe in ghosts whether or not ghosts exist. At the very least it is redundant. The answer is yes by definition. Likewise if you ask a theist if Jesus/god exists, or existed, you are asking them a rhetorical question.

There is no evidence that Jesus ever existed. There are plenty of historical records of how the emperor Constantine, followed by Augustine, and the other fathers of Christianity created and shaped Christianity as it largely exists today regardless of sect. Jerome created the Vulgate (the first bible). They set the time of Jesus 3 centuries before their time and the setting in a remote village of Palestine both in an effort to add mystery and create the false impression of veracity.

Information at the time was a privilege that few enjoyed and those contemporaries can be forgiven for believing the silly stories. Especially, when declaring oneself a non-believer meant a sure death sentence. Today on the other hand, information is the easiest thing to obtain. That is why religious groups spend so much money in misinformation in order to protect their investment. The opinions in this forum can be used as catalysts for research, but they are not on themselves nearly adequate to learn anything in depth.

Any person with an open mind and average intelligence can easily find out any factual information available. Anyone who starts with the premise that every thing he/she thinks he/she knows may be false will learn at an ever increasing rate. Anyone who starts researching with an assumption will have limited success in research. Believing that Jesus existed and then looking for evidence that it existed is a laughable research strategy in research circles. The question is who says that Jesus existed? Then ask is the name fitting to the setting? In this case it is not. What is the evidence? When you think you found the answer, then you need to ask, “what was my biggest mistake in my research? What have I overlooked?” and further investigate any thing that is remotely suspicious, unsound, or not plausible.

Theists fool themselves into the following logic: There is no strong evidence that Jesus did not exist. Therefore, he must have existed.

I hope this helps.

---

I did not say atheists don't believe Jesus existed, I thought you were speaking specifically of those that don't. There are some who do and some who don't, agreed. Believing is not accepting something as factual without evidence, belief is accepting something as true. It commonly is accepted that truth requires objective evidence therefore belief would have objective evidence supporting it. Faith is accepting something as true without objective evidence. Blind faith would then be accepting something as true despite of evidence or with zero evidence.

While I agree on your researching guidelines the rest of the post smacks of just as much bias as asking a theist if Jesus exists. Comments like "silly" , "of course", "fool" are not as unbiased as you're attempting to appear to be. Your generalizations of all theists also are a detriment to any objective thinking. I accept religious documents as indicative evidence, without a body or burial site or effigies to great men. I claim it's likely that a man named Jesus existed, if he did there are stories about his life. I hope this helps

Tackattack,

My statement that atheist do not “believe” Jesus existed, or not exist is because atheist by definition do not “believe”. If they are atheist they will simply accept or not accept the evidence.

On the other hand the above is the essence of a religious argument because religious arguments are purely philosophical. The religious arguments always evolve on the semantics because the arguments end when the substantive issues begin.

There is no historical evidence that the Jesus of the Christians existed. The name is not Hebrew, Greek, Palestinian, or Roman. It is a Spanish construct. The Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castilla took Christianity from near extinction and turned it into an effective tool of repression, control, and dictatorial government, which they spread around the world with their conquests.

Jesus is a fairly common Spanish name. I have a cousin, and an old great friend with that name, but neither of them is Jewish. The name Jesus is as foreign to Hebrew as Francisco. From the onset, the story makes no sense. Then, there is the fact that no contemporary Hebrew scholar ever wrote about “Jesus” or any other man with some of the attributes that Christians attach to “him”. No Roman or Greek historian wrote one sentence about the alleged self proclaimed son of god.

The more recent the Christian “scholar”, the greater the “evidence” that Jesus “must have” existed at least as a man. It is much easier to reinvent the news that “took place” 2010 years ago. That said, the date of the alleged birth of the fictional Jesus must be wrong because Herod died in the year 2 B.C. He could not logically have ordered the Jewish babies killed when he was dead. There is another detail. The Hebrew scholars forgot to mention anywhere that their children were ordered dead by the Romans in year 1. Maybe they didn’t mind?

What do you think about the fact that Christianity was reported by Romans to exist in Greece decades before the alleged birth of Jesus and that the Greeks did not use the name Jesus, but Kristós? What do you make of the fact that Greeks not Jews were specifically addressed in the NT? What do you make of the fact that Messianic Jews were converted to Christianity by non-Jews and that no Christian Jews descend from the “original” Jesus character, or his alleged entourage?

There is the issue that the earliest Gospel was written in the 2nd century and that the Gospels contradict one another on their Jesus tales. Who said that if you tell a lie long enough, people will believe it?

(September 1, 2010 at 9:31 am)Quest of knowledge Wrote: That said, the date of the alleged birth of the fictional Jesus must be wrong because Herod died in the year 2 B.C. He could not logically have ordered the Jewish babies killed when he was dead. There is another detail. The Hebrew scholars forgot to mention anywhere that their children were ordered dead by the Romans in year 1. Maybe they didn’t mind?

This is one thing that has really puzzled me about the NT. Even if Herod could have given the order, it doesn't make a lot of sense since Herod was merely a figurehead propped up by the Roman government. He didn't have the authority to order Roman soldiers to do something like this, on this scale-- and based on a silly prophecy? Te Roman government would have laughed at him. It also would've created a hell of a lot of civil unrest, something not exactly in the Roman's interest (the Jews were a pain in ass enough as it was for the Romans). And yet no mention off it outside of the gospel accounts. (I find the same thing puzzling about the OT with the ten plagues, and the Israelite exodus. There is no mention of this in Egyptian history that I am aware of).

(August 15, 2010 at 9:48 pm)theVOID Wrote:

(August 11, 2010 at 4:58 pm)Captain Scarlet Wrote: Not talking metaphorically here ie in my heart etc. Is he in heaven? Is that where Yahweh is? Is it a supernatural realm? If the answers are yes then how was he raised bodily and therefore materially into an immaterial realm with no time nor space for a material body to exist?

Hes' hiding, we were playing hide-and-seek together back in some caves in Jerusalem and i never went to find him, he's probably still sitting there behind that big rock thinking he's fucking awesome at hide and seek.

You would fit right in with Matt Stone and Trey Parker.

---

(August 16, 2010 at 12:11 am)Godschild Wrote: How (do) you know that the copies we have today are not like the originals. You have no idea what the originals had to say, you do not have any idea whether or not the originals were signed by the very writters they are attributed to. So how is it you can make such a statement without the original documents. Your opinion is bias by your own non-belief.

Seems to me you just made a case against your own belief. How do you know the copies we have today are trustworthy? Or do you just believe regardless of whether the Bible is actually right about how events took place? If that's the case, you would do just as well pulling beliefs out of thin air.

(September 1, 2010 at 9:50 am)Entropist Wrote:

(September 1, 2010 at 9:31 am)Quest of knowledge Wrote: That said, the date of the alleged birth of the fictional Jesus must be wrong because Herod died in the year 2 B.C. He could not logically have ordered the Jewish babies killed when he was dead. There is another detail. The Hebrew scholars forgot to mention anywhere that their children were ordered dead by the Romans in year 1. Maybe they didn’t mind?

This is one thing that has really puzzled me about the NT. Even if Herod could have given the order, it doesn't make a lot of sense since Herod was merely a figurehead propped up by the Roman government. He didn't have the authority to order Roman soldiers to do something like this, on this scale-- and based on a silly prophecy? Te Roman government would have laughed at him. It also would've created a hell of a lot of civil unrest, something not exactly in the Roman's interest (the Jews were a pain in ass enough as it was for the Romans). And yet no mention off it outside of the gospel accounts. (I find the same thing puzzling about the OT with the ten plagues, and the Israelite exodus. There is no mention of this in Egyptian history that I am aware of).

You are correct. There is no mention of the Jews being in Egypt as a group that migrated from Ur, in present day Iraq, from where Abraham was supposed to have migrated with his nephew Lot. There is also no historical mention of absolutely anything that the Bible says happened because the whole thing is an inconsistent collection of silly unsophisticated tales for naïve people. Most intelligent religious people were raised in the religion and either never bothered to challenge their beliefs, or they are psychologically unable to do so.

Judaism itself was invented by the Babylonians. The Babylonians invaded what was known as Philistine and spread the myth that those who believed in the religion they invented were related to them. Ur is located in what was the kingdom of Babylon, so if the Jews were descendents of Abraham who was Babylonian by birth, then that made the Jews Babylonian descent. The silly Philistines who swallowed the story then started to war against their own people. In other words, the Babylonians created a civil war between Philistines (the Greeks spelled the name of the place as Phalestina, and the Romans dropped the “h” and made it Palestina, which is Palestine in English) and “Jews” that continues today.

Ezra, who was the Babylonian governor of Israel during the second Babylonian invasion of Philistine, wrote the book of Ezra and the Book of Daniel. What business does have a Babylonian invader writing the Jewish “holy” book? The book of Daniel tells the story of a prominent Jew in Babylon during the second Babylonian invasion of Philistine. It tells the Jews that the Jews are respected by the Babylonians and that the Jews have influence over Babylonian affairs. That way the poor confused Philistines that converted to Judaism fought against their own non converted Philistines rather than fight against the Babylonian invaders.

The Babylonians did not invent the whole thing from nothing. The parts of Genesis relating to creation and Satan were written in Babylon by the ancestors of the Kurds. The Babylonians added the stories of Abraham onwards. The Babylonians and the Assyrians were essentially the same people, just two different names for the two different empires they created at different times with different rulers. At any rate, their language was and is Aramaic (the Assyrians of today call it Arami). The Torah and most of the Old Testament was written in Aramaic. What a coincidence!

The Babylonians also invented Moses and the whole story of the Jews in Egypt and the Jews invading Philistine. They did this to prevent an alliance between Philistines (Palestinians) and Egyptians.

I find the reality of the development of Judaism, Christianity, and other religions so much more interesting than the simplistic tales it packages for the needy believers.