Atheists being asked about the existence of Jesus

[Angrboda]

Nobody would care about Jesus if he was just a man, so that's not what's being argued when people argue a historical Jesus.  Pretending to argue one thing when you're really arguing something else is dishonest.  If Jesus wasn't a miracle man and God, then he's not worth remembering.  Arguing that he was a man is beside the point.  If people have no faith in their arguments that Jesus performed miracles and was resurrected, they shouldn't waste people's time with pointless claims about a historical Jesus.  There were plenty of "historical" people who lived and died.  Nobody cares about merely historical people.

I disagree.  People DO seem to care about 'merely historical people'.  We read what they wrote, we read what was written about them, and we quote them to make points.

Socrates, Nietzsche, Shakespeare, Rodin, Twain, Curie, Barton - tons more, none of whom were miracle workers or gods, yet we still discuss them and their contributions to the human condition.

Regarding Jesus, your own Thomas Jefferson didn't for a moment think he was divine, but regarded him as a great moral philosopher.

It seems we can care a great deal about the 'merely historical people'.

Boru

You're being purposely obtuse. Obviously I meant that they would not care about Jesus in the way they do if he were merely a historical man. You took what I said and interpreted it very literally in order to make a contrarian point. Additionally, what you said is not even true. We don't care about Socrates and Nietzsche and so on because they were merely historical people. They weren't. They were exceptional people, and that is why we care about them, not because they were historical. So you're doubly wrong.