Did Jesus exist?

[The Grand Nudger]

I mean, really. How could Christianity take off without a central prophet figure? What stops someone from the time saying to his followers, "No man, you're full of shit," and going to where Jesus allegedly lived and preached and saying, "See!? No Jesus! You guys are crazy!" Without Jesus, the rise of Christianity is missing a big puzzle piece. What would you put in his place to explain it all?

Who would die for a lie...........?  

Is it plato that's possibly socrates, or socrates that's possibly plato's?  I can never remember.....but, so what if he didn't exist?  How have you determined that jesus was a physical person and zues "not so much"?  Certainly couldn't have teased that difference out of the stories told about either.

RE the above. Familiarize yourself with Tana, where a member of a foreign aristocracy is worshipped as a god -after natives had an encounter with american military forces. Tease that chain of event's out and into context. Try to work out how those connections were made. It should be a whole lot easier than the case of the gospels, since this occurred in modern times.....well documented....but it isn't. People believe in strange shit. Asking yourself, or another, "how could they have believed that without some kernel of truth at it's center" -as- a defense of a hypothetical kernel of truth is question begging-ly futile......and any proposed scenario to square the circle, for example saying "well, the us forces were advanced and they had a picture of a british snob" utterly and completely misses the mark of whether or not the character of this god, as described by the people of tana (or early christians in the case of jesus) was legendary or mythical.