Existence of Jesus

[DD_8630]

I know Occam's razor says when everything is otherwise the same then the least entities postulated is the most parsimonious.

But as it says everything otherwise the same - there are exceptions right?

Perhaps its more likely that a character is based on someone than just made up from scratch for instance?

Ah, but it's just that probability that we're trying to calculate. Everything else is the same: we have exactly zero evidence supporting or refuting any of the scenarios, and they only differ in the whether 'Jesus' exists or not. So, since the 'Jesus-less' one is more parsimonious (it has one less entity than the others), it is more likely to be true than the others (according to Occam's Razor, at least).

I mean I'm going by how I think an awful lot of characters are based on someone rather than totally made up. And I think the founder of Christianity would perhaps be MORE of a target of exaggeration and making a big deal of. Perhaps more likely than making the whole thing up 100%. I dunno.

But why is it more likely?

So my question is - is it perhaps more likely in general that 'characters' are based especially in situations like this perhaps?

No: without evidence supporting their existence, these characters are no more likely to exist (or to be based on then-living people) than giants and leprechauns.

Perhaps we should just say: "it is more parsimonious to assume that there was no Jesus at all than to assume the supernatural Jesus of the bible was based on someone that we could call the 'real' Jesus." ?

Is it necessarily more likely, statistically?

Have I said anything worthwhile here or am I MERELY confusing myself as opposed to just confusing myself while I'm trying to think this through ?

EvF

Anything you say is worthwhile! Though you seem to be confusing 'parsimony' with 'plausible'. A theory is parsimonious if it is simple (i.e., lacks any unnecessary entities), and Occam's Razor says that the more parsimonious something is, the more likely it is to be true.