Intelligent Atheists: Who/What Was Jesus?

[Edwardo Piet]

Huh? No excuse for that?

Better sites than Youporn nowadays, besides there's not much on there I haven't seen now

[Minimalist]

The problem is people think their biased opinions are equal to fact, even against academic evidence.

The problem with that Danny is that what you call "academic evidence" is little more than the biased opinion of theologians who have a vested interest in promoting their bullshit.

I keep asking for evidence and all I ever get is "the gospels say ..................."

Well, the gospels ain't worth shit.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Jesus was an imaginary character Paul created to sell his religion of resurrection. He selected the name "Jesus" to tie his imaginary character to other characters with the same name equivalent who were supposedly wise scholars. He wanted him to have credibility instead of using the name of some unknown dummy.

Later on Paul's disciples wrote the Gospels as "prequels" to show Jesus' teachings and life story. Everything they knew about Jesus they got from Paul or simply made up. They also added some of the acts of the three main rebel leaders against the Romans and attributed them to the Jesus character in their stories.

[Cleo]

The question of who was Jesus is a very important one - he started a movement that then started a new religion. He reinterpreted much of the Mosaic Law, and I've said why I think he did that: there are two reasons actually; one he disagreed with the version taught by the mainstream first century Palestinian Jewish leaders/authorities, and two he valued compassion for people much more than the Jewish authorities. Whether this was itself motivate by his apocalyptic beliefs I'm not sure, but it seems quite plausible.

His value for compassion over authority appears to be greatly misunderstood by both atheists and theists alike. Would you say his rise of being perceived as the only external God is more likely to be a manipulated deception delivered from authority, or a more naturally honest attempt at rationalization made by many other people in society after the time of his martyrdom and legend?

As seen here, his story exists, and everyone tends to justify it differently to suit their needs. My main dilemma is in working out the causation of great myth. E.g. It is possible he was both psychotic and a quantum healer of his time, so God or idiotic lunatic remain the main choices of comprehension for most people, simply through lack of capability in using terminology to mutually understand anything of exceptional experience.

The reality could be that he was an exceptional human being on an exceptional life path, and most other lives will never come close to being able to fully empathize with every part of him - hence his unique ability to unreciprocally empathize with others. Both metaphorical exaggerations of this and ridiculing under-estimations of his abilities can be seen as attempts of the individual ego to comfortably relate.

The uncomfortable truth then, for both atheists and theists alike, is that whoever or whatever he was is beyond objective comprehension. Simply stating one of God, lunatic, or myth, will never suffice. If he was not a man, and entirely a myth, then his myth was devised by men in authority with incredibly superior knowledge. If he was a man with severe mental health problems, then he also had incredible abilities. If he was the closest representation to a God available in recent times, then he was closer to light energy in the quantum realm than most.

Pick your poisons (or lack of) depending on your life experience.

[Cleo]

The question of who was Jesus is a very important one - he started a movement that then started a new religion. He reinterpreted much of the Mosaic Law, and I've said why I think he did that: there are two reasons actually; one he disagreed with the version taught by the mainstream first century Palestinian Jewish leaders/authorities, and two he valued compassion for people much more than the Jewish authorities. Whether this was itself motivate by his apocalyptic beliefs I'm not sure, but it seems quite plausible.

This value for compassion over authority appears to be greatly misunderstood by atheists and theists alike. Do you consider his rise as the one and only external God to be a directly intended manipulation by authority, or a more natural result of most people in society trying to rationalize his apparent psychosis, quantum healing abilities, martyrdom, and subsequent mythical legend?

[Aractus]

Jesus was an imaginary character Paul created to sell his religion of resurrection.  He selected the name "Jesus" to tie his imaginary character to other characters with the same name equivalent who were supposedly wise scholars.  He wanted him to have credibility instead of using the name of some unknown dummy.

Later on Paul's disciples wrote the Gospels as "prequels" to show Jesus' teachings and life story.  Everything they knew about Jesus they got from Paul or simply made up.  They also added some of the acts of the three main rebel leaders against the Romans and attributed them to the Jesus character in their stories.

That's not an intelligent response. If you were correct and there was nothing before Paul's writings in the 50's AD how do you explain the epistles of James and Jude and the gospels?

Both Paul himself and Luke in Acts says Paul was a zealous Jew; so how do you explain his dramatic conversion if he invented Jesus?

Finally, the sayings of Jesus are quire different to Paul, so how do you explain that?

[KevinM1]

Jesus was the guy who mowed my lawn until he ran over the garden hose.

[Minimalist]

Both Paul himself and Luke in Acts says Paul was a zealous Jew; so how do you explain his dramatic conversion if he invented Jesus?

How do you know those are legitimate and not later edits or concoctions?  As has been pointed out countless times before we have no original documents for any of this stuff.

At some point you have to face the reality that you accept the validity of this stuff because someone told you it was real.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Jesus was an imaginary character Paul created to sell his religion of resurrection.  He selected the name "Jesus" to tie his imaginary character to other characters with the same name equivalent who were supposedly wise scholars.  He wanted him to have credibility instead of using the name of some unknown dummy.

Later on Paul's disciples wrote the Gospels as "prequels" to show Jesus' teachings and life story.  Everything they knew about Jesus they got from Paul or simply made up.  They also added some of the acts of the three main rebel leaders against the Romans and attributed them to the Jesus character in their stories.

That's not an intelligent response. If you were correct and there was nothing before Paul's writings in the 50's AD how do you explain the epistles of James and Jude and the gospels?

Both Paul himself and Luke in Acts says Paul was a zealous Jew; so how do you explain his dramatic conversion if he invented Jesus?

Finally, the sayings of Jesus are quire different to Paul, so how do you explain that?

Pay attention:

I said that Paul invented the Jesus character to sell his religion of resurrection.  Paul's disciples wrote the Gospels as a backstory to Paul's character.  Paul's focus was on resurrection.  He didn't say very much about the imaginary Jesus character except to say that he came back from the dead and that if the dummies believed that then they would as well.  

Paul created Christianity and established its basic rules and rituals.  As time passed and the religion splintered people tossed a lot of those rules and rituals into the trash can.  The only ritual the Jesus character ever gave was the one of communion.  

BTW, the Paul character was one of the greatest liars in the entire Bible.  He said and did whatever it took to convince the dummies of the BS that he was spewing.  

James and Jude supposedly knew Jesus but they hardly mention him at all.  James thought that prayers and magic oil could cure sickness.  Jude spent most of his very short message rambling about stuff that happened in the Old Testament.

[Aractus]

How do you know those are legitimate and not later edits or concoctions?  As has been pointed out countless times before we have no original documents for any of this stuff.

We've got no original documents for Shakespeare's plays either, so how do you know that he wrote them?

At some point you have to face the reality that you accept the validity of this stuff because someone told you it was real.

At some point you'll need to stop getting your history from denialist quacks.