Atheists being asked about the existence of Jesus

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Actually the passage regarding James death, wasn’t writen about in the Bible. But Josephus describe the death, the various political players involved, and indicates his relationship with Jesus. It’s a fairly detailed historical account, that’s pretty banal. Josephus was aware of variety of things happening locally, he was a historian chronicling a variety of things happening in that area.

Secondly we have a first hand account of someone who met his brother and his disciples. 

Now, you say you don’t have to recreate some alternative ahistorical explanation, but why? If you feel that these elements can just as easily be explained by ahistorical explanations as they can by historical explanations, than you should be able to prove it, by doing just that. I know that once you start going down that line you start to border on the ridiculous, unlike if I were to start explaining Hercules as ahistorical.

You can forms all sorts of reasonable historical explanations, but I bet you can’t form a reasonable ahistorical explanation, that doesn’t border on the credulous.

This is a testament of the strength of the historical arguments, that one can be as confident about Jesus exists, because the alternative borders on the mother of all conspiracy theories.

There’s a multitude of pieces here that make little to no sense in any conceivable ahistoricist conclusion, like the idea of non-historical person being considered the Jewish messiah, or even being crucified by the romans.

Is it more likely that this messiah claimant met his untimely death at the hands of the Romans, or that some early Jews would have invented a non historical a messiah that died at their hands in such a humiliating fashion?

If you think you can make a non-credulous ahistorical conclusion, by all means try, I bet you can’t.

The fact that you can’t, is a pretty good indication why we can be pretty confident that the data supports historicity not ahistoricity.


It’s because folks like yourself operate on a very silly way to think of these questions. What you should be doing is looking at the various data and say what’s the best explanation that I can form based on them? Can I form a ahistorical explanation just as good as a historical one? What you should be doing is actually putting that brain of yours to work, and start drawing out reasonable conclusions here, in this process you’ll quickly see why historicity is held with a good deal of confidence, and a-historicity is seen as ridiculous. Instead you and other opts for a lazy mans agnosticism.

Over and over you continue to straw man me by telling me to prove claims that I'm not making. I don't claim to have an explanation for why the writings exist (although I can speculate, it would be just that: speculation), all I'm saying is this: that the writings exist doesn't prove to me, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Jesus was real. That's it. It proves, at best, there may have been a guy named Jesus who roamed around during that time talking about god. Maybe. That's the most we truly have.

That Josephus talked about a guy named James that may or may not have been the brother of a guy who may or may not have existed does nothing more to prove your case.

The reality of it is, I'm not sitting here saying Jesus wasn't real. I'm saying I'm not buying into the fact that he was, and at best I'm at a maybe. At best.

I can repeat myself a number of times more if you'd like, but for some reason I don't feel like you're even reading what I'm typing, because no matter how much I say I'm not offering an alternate explanation, you seem to continue to push me to prove my alternate explanation, which doesn't even exist. You're arguing with a figment of your imagination.

A small handful of posthumous writings about a man previously written about in a book of magical fairy tales does very very little to actually prove this man was a genuine historical figure. Period. Is it possible he was real? Sure. Probable? Not so much. I'm not convinced.

I wonder how many more times you'll try to get me to repeat this? I'm growing weary of this non-conversation.

One can hold that Jesus existed confidently, based on the fact that historical explanations make far better sense of the data, than ahistorical explanations, all which stretch credulity. If the evidence as you suggest is weak, this wouldn't be the case.

In order to prove that the evidence is lackluster, incapable of giving us such confidence, than you'd have to provide an ahistorical explanation with a comparable degree of explanatory power. Or else your claim that the evidence is lackluster, is just blustering on your part, and has no real substance.

The reason why you refuse to even contemplate an alternative, speculate for us on an alternative possibly, because you and I both know, that it's not long before it starts to border on the ridiculous. The fact that you can't see why this renders your statement about the evidence being lackluster, as meaningless, is more your problem than mine, says more about an incapacity to do the hard work of actually reasoning through your view, and your preference for a lazy agnosticism.