The question that shatters faith, forever.

[FallentoReason]

But did Socrates truly exist?

Socrates never had a thing to do with whether I get to heaven or not, therefore I'm apathetic towards his existence.

Before you mentioned that we have to stay consistent with how we determine whether someone existed based on the evidence we have. This is very true but the way I see it there's a component of probability involved. Let me explain:

We have this Jesus guy. We are told that he was walking around the place in public performing miracles. Almost daily it seems like he had hundreds, if not, thousands following him around. Now.. what is the probability that after all this ruckus He was causing not a single historian deemed it worthy of a mention in their records? I would have thought quite low, but the fact there's nothing isn't saying something about the historians of the time, it's clearly making a statement about the so called facts about Jesus.

Socrates was a smart cookie but he has nowhere near as much importance as the Son of God walking amongst men. How is it that for both we have roughly the same quality of 'evidence'?

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What I used to think was that there's this God out there that was perfect. I knew He was because His way of communicating with us was done perfectly. He sent Himself to earth and did things that changed the course of history. These things could be read about in the New Testament and since it's historically flawless it means the idea of God flows perfectly from the supernatural to reality. I didn't have a problem with this.

The problem that arose eventually was this: there's two sides to this. The first is the idea of this God and his son Jesus. Then you have all the humans involved with this God that had the responsibility of handing down the information. What I observe is that the two ends do not meet. There's a gap between the content of the gospels and reality.

For example, take the wikipedia extract that I've quoted. Firstly, this shows the author wasn't a witness because he just based his writings on what was already available. Secondly, the author of Matthew decided to beef up Mark with supernatural content. The fact that Matthew came second gives no credibility to the supernatural. These are the sorts of wrinkles that start to form a gap between the Bible and true human history.

Respectfully, so what?

Bottom line if you choose to worship the God of the bible then it is not your responsibility for the content of said bible. It is His responsibility especially given the fact the bible says nothing can be added or taken from this book. At that point Content is no longer your concern neither is how it was compiled. IF you worship and praise the God Of The Bible.

Only a weak impotent God has no control over what is in his Holy book and has no way of effecting change. If God wants something changed then we find a cache like the dead sea scrolls or in the End the Same forgiveness He extends to cover the willful sin and evils of man, He will have to also extend the same forgiveness for man's best effort to Worship Him by the Only Holy book He has given us.

I know where you're coming from but you can't just be so wishful as to think that everything recorded happened as a consequence of what Jesus was doing. The very fact that no one that wrote the gospels even saw Jesus means not only do I need faith in god, but I have to have faith that Jesus was a real person. That's already a huge blow to the credibility of the Christian god.

Are you not familiar with the Gospel of John or Matthew?

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Weren't we just discussing one of those before... and how the author ripped off Mark..?