Challenge to atheists: I find your lack of faith disturbing!

[Zen Badger]

And look at that, Zen's trolling... some things never change.

And you've no evidence to back up your empty assertions.

Indeed, some things never change

[Confused Ape]

There's a number of you here that consistently deny that Jesus was a real historical person, which is utterly ridiculous

Why do you find atheists' lack of faith disturbing? You're posting in an atheist forum so you're not going to get everyone agreeing with you about Jesus having existed.

[Aractus]

Why do you find atheists' lack of faith disturbing? You're posting in an atheist forum so you're not going to get everyone agreeing with you about Jesus having existed.

Do you deny the Holocaust too? As already discussed some historical facts are frankly beyond discussion. Even among atheist new testament scholars you'd find almost no one who actually believes that Jesus never existed.

[Confused Ape]

Do you deny the Holocaust too? As already discussed some historical facts are frankly beyond discussion. Even among atheist new testament scholars you'd find almost no one who actually believes that Jesus never existed.

No, I don't deny the Holocaust and my personal opinion is that there might have been a real man who was obscured by myths, legends and stories. The same goes for King Arthur but I don't find it disturbing that some people insist that he never existed.

Scholars who say that Jesus existed as an historical figure tend to portray him as an ordinary human being who didn't perform miracles and who didn't rise from the dead. Other people have come up with theories about how he could have survived the Crucifiction. I don't see how any of this is of value to Christians who believe that Jesus was the divine son of God who performed miracles etc etc.

I could understand you being disturbed if you were in an Anglcian discussion forum and some Christians there were trying to promote the views of John Shelby Spong.

Twelve Points

Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found.

Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity. So the Christology of the ages is bankrupt.

The Biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense.

The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ's divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.

The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity.

The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed.

Resurrection is an action of God. Jesus was raised into the meaning of God. It therefore cannot be a physical resuscitation occurring inside human history.

The story of the Ascension assumed a three-tiered universe and is therefore not capable of being translated into the concepts of a post-Copernican space age.

There is no external, objective, revealed standard written in scripture or on tablets of stone that will govern our ethical behavior for all time.

Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way.

The hope for life after death must be separated forever from the behavior control mentality of reward and punishment. The Church must abandon, therefore, its reliance on guilt as a motivator of behavior.

All human beings bear God's image and must be respected for what each person is. Therefore, no external description of one's being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination.

PS: If I remember correctly, you refused to accept that the Antikythera Mechanism is an early computing device. Should I find that disturbing?

[Mudhammam]

Even if Christians could cite one hundred individual eye-witness accounts to Jesus' magical post-mortem "appearances," it wouldn't prove anything more than modern-day mystics and prophets whose "miracles" are attested to by the thousands, sometimes millions.

[Confused Ape]

Found a relevant blog entry by someone who accepts that Jesus existed.

I accept Jesus existed

I have decided that it is far simpler to accept that the man, Jesus, existed. I won’t ever bother arguing with any Christian apologist that Jesus did not exist ever again. Do you hear that Christians? I accept that Jesus was a historical person.

In accepting this I do nothing but move myself away from a currently controversial (in historical academia) view that Jesus is a complete myth. They can no longer call me a Christ-myther and compare me to holocaust deniers (a very very illogical comparison).

I accept, against my critical thinking, that Jesus existed. I in no way at all accept any of the ridiculous stories about him. I don’t accept that he healed people miraculously, walked on water, turned water to wine, created large amounts of food from a small amount of food, cursed a fig tree, or was raised from the dead. These are all completely moronic things to believe and I would be completely giving up on my critical thinking to accept that he did any of these things.

The man Jesus performed zero miracles in his lifetime. He was a plain man who managed to make himself exceptionally famous. That is it. Even in accepting that Jesus was a historical figure I can still point out that Christianity, like every other religion, is complete nonsense. This is simply because of the above. None of those acts performed by Jesus are historically accurate and to argue that they are just makes you completely fucking deluded.

Admitting that Jesus was an historical person makes no changes to my life or belief. A Christian admitting that the above acts performed by Jesus are false makes them no longer a Christian. If they admit that Jesus did not rise from the dead, then the whole point of that religious story is destroyed. That is why they can’t do it. The reason I can’t accept those miracles is because they are outright irrational.

The way I see it, the possibility that there was a real, ordinary human man obscured by myths and legends is no threat to atheism. Atheists who believe there was a real, ordinary human man obscured by myths and legends aren't helping to promote the idea that the Christian religion is true.

[xpastor]

Found a relevant blog entry by someone who accepts that Jesus existed.

I accept Jesus existed

...

I accept, against my critical thinking, that Jesus existed. I in no way at all accept any of the ridiculous stories about him. I don’t accept that he healed people miraculously, walked on water, turned water to wine, created large amounts of food from a small amount of food, cursed a fig tree, or was raised from the dead. These are all completely moronic things to believe and I would be completely giving up on my critical thinking to accept that he did any of these things.

The man Jesus performed zero miracles in his lifetime. He was a plain man who managed to make himself exceptionally famous. That is it. Even in accepting that Jesus was a historical figure I can still point out that Christianity, like every other religion, is complete nonsense. This is simply because of the above. None of those acts performed by Jesus are historically accurate and to argue that they are just makes you completely fucking deluded. ...

Jesus did not rise from the dead, then the whole point of that religious story is destroyed. That is why they can’t do it. The reason I can’t accept those miracles is because they are outright irrational.

Ehrman and many other critical New Testament scholars would agree with just about everything in this quote.

I think it is important to note that although Jesus did none of the miracles attributed to him, much (not all) of the teaching recorded in the gospels is authentic. That would include the moral teaching (especially the sermon on the mount), his apocalyptic teaching about the imminent end of the world (he was obviously wrong) and the parables (mostly picturesque presentations of his theme that the end is nigh). About his life and death, we can say only that he probably created a disturbance in the temple and he was probably crucified as a troublemaker.

I don't even think much of his moral teaching is useful. Because he thought the end was nigh, he advised extremes such as not being concerned about where your sustenance would come from, avoiding marriage, etc. One big exception, the parable of the good Samaritan, which can hardly be improved on.

What we can say is that he was a brilliant speaker, the parables and the wrong-headed moral teaching really catch your attention. He made a huge impact on his immediate followers, so much so that they could not accept his death, and they began to spread stories of his resurrection, probably after one deluded person had a hallucination.

Certainly Jesus was only human, but he was more than a plain man, if plain means just ordinary. He had extraordinary charisma and rhetorical brilliance, and that lies behind the profound impact which he had on our history.

[DeistPaladin]

He made a huge impact on his immediate followers, so much so that they could not accept his death, and they began to spread stories of his resurrection, probably after one deluded person had a hallucination.

To underscore the plausibility of this scenario, just say one word.

Elvis.

[Mudhammam]

Matthew 27:52-53

"and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many."

You forgot to take the quote in context. Let's look at the surrounding verses:

"50 And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.

51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split 52 and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. 53 They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and[e] went into the holy city and appeared to many people.

54 When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”

55 Many women were there, watching from a distance. They had followed Jesus from Galilee to care for his needs. 56 Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph,[f] and the mother of Zebedee’s sons.

57 As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. 58 Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him." (NIV)

IS IT JUST ME OR DID ANYONE ELSE CATCH THAT?

Did the author of Matthew's Gospel just reveal an early Christian belief about Jesus' resurrection? Is it an indication that Christians believed the resurrection of the dead had begun at Calvary? Matthew’s Gospel explicitly states that the holy ones "came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection" yet Matthew places this event at the moment Jesus dies, while his body is still hanging on the cross!

Was the "resurrection" originally thought to have occurred when Jesus "gave up his spirit"?

[DeistPaladin]

Found a relevant blog entry by someone who accepts that Jesus existed.

I can relate. I regret all the time and energy spent on this disucssion that would have been better spent on discussing The Wholly Babble. Let Ehrman and other divinity scholars sit in their ivory towers and chase after The Historical Jesus through their dusty scrolls. I shall not disturb their devotion or book writing tickets any more.

But I would like to ask them just one question.

"What, if anything, can we actually know about this man?"

I've never heard any definition of The Historical Jesus which is any more detailed than "um, you know, he was named Yeshua and well, you know, he was a religious leader of some kind and stuff." Oh, well, then! Since Yeshua was a common name and apocalyptic doom crier messiah wannabe a fairly common pastime, you'd likely find several over the course of the first century in Judea. But don't let me disturb you professors. Do continue your quests in the ivory tower. Let me know if you ever find anything of substance. I won't hold my breath.