Objective evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ?

[Cephus]

No, unsupported stories about a Galilean named Jesus influenced others that then organized a church.  This says nothing about whether or not those stories are factually true, which is really the whole point of this thread.  Much of the influence that church has had on the world has come from force and indoctrination, not by convincing people that the stories are actually so.  We have no more need to disprove the existence of Jesus than we do to disprove the existence of Harry Potter.  Unsupported claims of all kinds can be rejected, solely by citing their lack of supporting evidence.  Jesus isn't supported, thus it rests entirely on the shoulders of the believers to show why any of us ought to take this ridiculous story seriously.

It's not even a matter of believers versus non, as most non-believers acquainted with the data find many supporting evidences for Jesus' historical existence. You can dismiss them but then you do have the burden of citing why, or you risk being ignored altogether.

Because you haven't actually presented any objective evidence yet.  All you've presented are unsupported claims.  Just because lots of people believe these unsupported claims doesn't stop them from being unsupported claims and thus unimpressive to skeptics.  Try harder.

[GrandizerII]

He is supposed to be supremely important, and yet we have nothing written during his lifetime.

Except his importance was most probably exaggerated by the Gospel writers. I think he was just one of many random prophets at the time, who just happened to become popular after his death due to fortuitous circumstances.

[Cephus]

There seems to be a consensus that man named jesus did exist, but once you get past that point, there is no consensus on who he was, what he said, or what he did.

But a consensus doesn't really matter.  You'll find lots of people who believe all kinds of absurd, unsupported things.  A consensus doesn't make those  beliefs any better. After all, there might have once been a consensus that the Earth was flat.  They were still wrong.

[Mudhammam]

I had to go back into the archives to find something I hammered Drippy with once.  So much for the "more historical evidence" for fucking jesus than anyone else line of shit.

A greater gaffe in defense of Jesus' historicity is to make claims that are conspicuously opposite the truth of the matter, as when E.P.
Sanders boasts that 'the sources for Jesus are better ... than those that deal with Alexander [the Great]'. A more suicidal remark for his case
could hardly be imag­ined. Unlike Jesus, we have over half a dozen relatively objective histori­ans discussing the history of Alexander the Great (most notably Diodorus, Dionysius, Rufus, Trogus, Plutarch and more). These are not romances or propagandists, least of all fanatical worshipers, or anyone concerned about dogma, but disinterested historical writers employing some of the recog­nized skills of critical analysis of their day on a wide body of sources they had available that
we do not. Which doesn't mean we trust everything they say, but we still cannot name even one such person for Jesus, and 'none' is not 'more' than half a dozen.

Richard Carrier - On the Historicity of Jesus Pg. 21-22

So you're willing to allow that historians writing 200-300 years after the event can cite reliable testimony but you don't allow testimony in the context of a religious movement that is purporting to write about a person who lived within the last 20-80 years? By the standard you're applying to Jesus, an ordinary but influential Jewish teacher, none of those historians' accounts of Alexander the Great are permissible.

[GrandizerII]

It's not even a matter of believers versus non, as most non-believers acquainted with the data find many supporting evidences for Jesus' historical existence. You can dismiss them but then you do have the burden of citing why, or you risk being ignored altogether.

Because you haven't actually presented any objective evidence yet.  All you've presented are unsupported claims.  Just because lots of people believe these unsupported claims doesn't stop them from being unsupported claims and thus unimpressive to skeptics.  Try harder.

Honestly, I didn't see you come up with an alternate explanation for the points he made. You just arguing that it's all "unsupported claims". Do you understand how critical textual analysis works?

[Mudhammam]

It's not even a matter of believers versus non, as most non-believers acquainted with the data find many supporting evidences for Jesus' historical existence. You can dismiss them but then you do have the burden of citing why, or you risk being ignored altogether.

Because you haven't actually presented any objective evidence yet.  All you've presented are unsupported claims.  Just because lots of people believe these unsupported claims doesn't stop them from being unsupported claims and thus unimpressive to skeptics.  Try harder.

See, considering the present situation of the data we possess for any ancient figure, and the qualifications and methods of those who examine what is historically reliable or not, your rejection of the consensus for what instead is apparently nothing less than an elaborate conspiracy which often involves otherwise mundane and quirky claims about the central figure's background and life, contained in numerous primary sources written within a context of 20-80 years after the alleged person's death, an event that the entire movement is basically founded upon, the burden isn't on me to do your research and cite why alternative possibilities are less probable, that is if we are working with the evidence. And the fact that you are making a positive claim, that there was a conspiracy of people who talked as if a man had recently dwelt among them, and died, for which they had to actually stretch their religious prophecies to fit a narrative they desperately wanted to believe in, you're not being skeptical at all, nor is it merely an obligation of mine to justify the claims made thus far.

[Simon Moon]

I really don't have a horse in this race.

It doesn't matter to me if the Biblical 'Yeshua' character is based on a historical person or persons or not. His historical existence does not provide a shred of evidence that he performed miracles of was a god-man.

[Pyrrho]

I really don't have a horse in this race.

It doesn't matter to me if the Biblical 'Yeshua' character is based on a historical person or persons or not. His historical existence does not provide a shred of evidence that he performed miracles of was a god-man.

You are certainly correct that it really does not matter or make any difference for the believability of Christianity.  I personally do not care if he existed or not, though I am inclined to think he probably did not.  But that is very tentative only, and, again, unimportant, as you say.

[Cephus]

Because you haven't actually presented any objective evidence yet.  All you've presented are unsupported claims.  Just because lots of people believe these unsupported claims doesn't stop them from being unsupported claims and thus unimpressive to skeptics.  Try harder.

See, considering the present situation of the data we possess for any ancient figure, and the qualifications and methods of those who examine what is historically reliable or not, your rejection of the consensus for what instead is apparently nothing less than an elaborate conspiracy which often involves otherwise mundane and quirky claims about the central figure's background and life, contained in numerous primary sources written within a context of 20-80 years after the alleged person's death, an event that the entire movement is basically founded upon, the burden isn't on me to do your research and cite why alternative possibilities are less probable, that is if we are working with the evidence. And the fact that you are making a positive claim, that there was a conspiracy of people who talked as if a man had recently dwelt among them, and died, for which they had to actually stretch their religious prophecies to fit a narrative they desperately wanted to believe in, you're not being skeptical at all, nor is it merely an obligation of mine to justify the claims made thus far.

But I have no problem saying that we don't have good evidence for many people from antiquity.  Some have suggested that Socrates was just an invention of Plato, others have suggested that Plato and Aristotle might not have been real.  It doesn't matter because the ideas that have come down to us  today are important, no matter who actually came up with them in the first place.  However, that isn't the case with Jesus.  For Christianity to matter at all, Jesus had to physically exist as a man-god.  You can take whatever lessons you want from the Bible, some are good, some are really awful, but without a real Jesus, the religion based on him falls apart entirely.  

If you want to deny the existence of Aristotle or Alexander the Great, knock yourself out.  It really doesn't make a bit of difference to me.

[Mudhammam]

But I have no problem saying that we don't have good evidence for many people from antiquity. Some have suggested that Socrates was just an invention of Plato, others have suggested that Plato and Aristotle might not have been real. It doesn't matter because the ideas that have come down to us today are important, no matter who actually came up with them in the first place. However, that isn't the case with Jesus. For Christianity to matter at all, Jesus had to physically exist as a man-god. You can take whatever lessons you want from the Bible, some are good, some are really awful, but without a real Jesus, the religion based on him falls apart entirely.

If you want to deny the existence of Aristotle or Alexander the Great, knock yourself out.  It really doesn't make a bit of difference to me.

It doesn't make much of a difference to me either except that it isn't in the interest of critical thought to just say, "Oh, to hell with what experts think, I don't care. Thus, X." That Christianity falls apart if Jesus didn't exist isn't really relevant unless we want to go the other direction in understanding why there about six historians in the field who take that position; even so, one can be a Christian and believe the New Testament was inspired mythology or something, so it only falls apart for those whose investment in his historicity is essential to their faith, and that's not the case with me. Nor should it be the case with anyone interested in the truth, and while I agree that ideas are far more important than the person who espoused them, attacking faith going the mythicist route discredits the attacker.