Hostage to fear

[Randy Carson]

Ok. Randy, leave Spacetime the fuck alone. People like you are part of the problem.

Hi Spacetime. Ignore Randy as much as possible until you're stronger in your un-faith. He tries really hard to sound like he knows what he's talking about, but his house is built on the sand of fallacy and goes washing downstream every time someone throws a bucket over it. He of course does not realize this and joyously goes adding bricks to the same destroyed house. Christians.

I, too, had a hard time letting myself admit that I really didn't believe any more. It took years of noticing that certain things just don't line up. The thing that gave me that final push of confidence was realizing that the historical non-existence of Jesus of Nazareth is MUCH more likely than his existence. To me (and a growing community of historians), it seems much more likely that Jesus of Nazareth was a humanized version of an earlier sub-god character named Jesus whose death and resurrection took place in the celestial realms, not on Earth.

To me, that was the final straw because it changes the nature of the "test" entirely. For modern christianity to have any chance at all of viability, Jesus has to have at least walked the earth, leaving it up to faith whether he really had magic powers. If he was an entirely fictional character, though, then the test changes from "Can you believe in me on weak evidence?" to "Can you believe in me even though I am actively pretending to be fictional, and building my universe to mislead you to that conclusion? Oh, and by the way, if you fall into the trap that I myself have so cleverly set, I will burn you forever. Lol."

Since then, I have of course realized that proving he simply lived still wouldn't be enough. Even if there were sufficient evidence (there isn't) to suggest that Jesus of Nazareth was based on a human and not another fictional character, there is still Zero evidence that his miracles happened, or that anything like them happens ever. There is no evidence of the Great Flood. There is no evidence that the Exodus happened, or that the Jews were ever slaves of Egypt in the first place. Virtually nothing in the Bible can be supported with any kind of observable, peer-reviewed evidence.

Dealing with your family is a relatable problem. My own family is heavily christian, and my dad actually just retired from preaching and is really devout. I haven't told most of them yet for fear of the backlash, but when I told my wife I found out that she was paying the whole thing lip service and never actively believed any of the crazy shit that I did. Thankfully she decided she could still live with me even if I believed things for which there is no evidence. I hope your wife has the same reaction, but if she doesn't, that's her choice. You don't deserve to live a lie just because your family won't see the truth, though. Don't put yourself through that.

Tim O'Neill (a part-time member of this forum) demolishes ALL of this Jesus Myth nonsense in a two-part article here:

An Atheist Historian Examines the Evidence for Jesus (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.strangenotions.com/an-atheist...rt-1-of-2/

An Atheist Historian Examines the Evidence for Jesus (Part 2 of 2)
http://www.strangenotions.com/an-atheist...rt-2-of-2/

The idea that Jesus never existed is a crock. Professional scholars (believers and atheists alike) know this.

Only on the Internet is nonsense like this sold from one ignorant, gullible sap to another. But people are eager to listen to anyone who will tell them what they want to hear. Atheist NT scholar Bart Ehrman speaks of this:

Still, as is clear from the avalanche of sometimes outraged postings on all the relevant Internet sites, there is simply no way to convince conspiracy theorists that the evidence of their position is too thin to be convincing and that the evidence for the traditional view is thoroughly persuasive. Anyone who chooses to believe something contrary to evidence that an overwhelming majority of people find overwhelmingly convincing—whether it involves the fact of the Holocaust, the landing on the moon, the assassination of Presidents, or even a presidential place of birth—will not be convinced. Simply will [emphasis original] not be convinced.

...But as a historian, I think evidence matters. And the past matters. And for anyone to whom both evidence and the past matter, a dispassionate consideration of the case makes it quite plain: Jesus did exist (Ehrman, Bart, Did Jesus Exist?, 5-6.).