(February 10, 2015 at 1:54 pm)dyresand Wrote: ...
(February 10, 2015 at 1:54 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: Once a person declares that believing otherwise is silly, then one typically feels the need to maintain it in order to save face. So he does have a stake in it now, regardless of how he started.
He tried to defend HJ from a atheist perspective.
Yes, but that is irrelevant to my post. He has over and over stated that it is silly to disbelieve in an historical Jesus. If he backs down now, he will be admitting that he has been wrong page after page after page. People don't like doing that, particularly when they have been stating their position so vehemently.
Just to be clear, I will repeat myself regarding my position. I am not stating that there was no historical Jesus. I am stating that we have no good reason to believe that there was one. (Certainly, none have appeared in this thread thus far.) The difference is important. I am, as it were, an agnostic on the question of whether there was an historical Jesus or not.
A story may be written based on no one in particular as easily as it may be written about a particular person. Whether the story is believed or not makes no difference for this. That is a question of the persuasiveness of the story and its promoters, and the gullibility of the audience. The truth or falsehood of the story is irrelevant to such things.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
