Historian explains why Jesus ''mythers'' aren't taken seriously by most Historians

[Mudhammam]

But why is any of this important?

It's not. I just enjoy shitting on stupid atheists like Brakeman and Min in the same way I take pleasure in ridiculing dumb religious beliefs.

[Little lunch]

Even after I became an Atheist I still believed jesus was a real guy.
When I heard he wasn't it took me ages to get used to the idea.
I'm not going back now and I wish these well paid fat arse historians would make up their fucking minds.

[Little lunch]

I didn't really mean that last part. :-)

[robvalue]

Lol Don't worry, I have Jesus in a stasis pod. I'll let the debate continue a little longer, then I'll bring him out.

[comet]

But why is any of this important?

It's not. I just enjoy shitting on stupid atheists like Brakeman and Min in the same way I take pleasure in ridiculing dumb religious beliefs.

 you and I may be in the same sect of atheism.  Being Stupid is being stupid.   I don't give a fuck what "robes" they ware or what "no-god" they don't pray to.  I base the side I chose on how they intend to help people.  Regardless of what they believe.

[Cyberman]

Lol Don't worry, I have Jesus in a stasis pod. I'll let the debate continue a little longer, then I'll bring him out.

Too late:

[The Grand Nudger]

Let's see if I got this straight:

The HJ camp say there was a preacher called Yeshua who claimed to be the son of God, and was crucified.

The mythicists do not deny this possibility, but in fact say that this isn't enough information to accurately identify one single person; or even if it was, we can't be sure it's the person actually being identified, or that the myth isn't also based on other people. Let's face it, when almost the entirely story is mythical/unverifiable, it's a pretty big assumption that no other real people didn't creep in somewhere.

So really, the differences are pretty minor here, as far as I can see. HJ-ers are confident enough they have found "one person" with this criteria, and mythicists say they probably have not.  But neither claim (I hope) that the "life story" of Jesus that we have is actually accurate, so the "Jesus character" is not a real person.

I see this very basic HJ position as so similar to the mythicist position that I don't feel the need to "identify" as either, and I don't understand the infighting. It's when people get carried away and start supposing we can know much more about Jesus that I start pulling a face.

Some HJ'ers are of the opinion that the claims to godhead are a part of the christ myth.  Those that angle for a jewish jesus, for example, recognize that it's unlikely that a devout jew would claim to be a god, or that other equally devout jews would accept such a claim.  This is a similar criticism as that which is leveled at the passage in josephus.  

Te mythicist position is comfortable with the possibility of a historical jesus,  but finds it difficult to establish that based upon what we have, and simultaneously  much easier to establish the christ of myth (which exists regardless of the existence of any HJ), which is based on no man in particular..so far as we can tell.  The mythicist position goes farthur.  It describes the landscape of christian belief, and a situation in which early christians -did not believe- that jesus was a man, that there was a HJ.  This, in the mythicist position, is a later interpretation.  

There -isn't- much difference between the HJ and mythicist positions.  The mythicist position -agrees- with some HJ's when they are busy -disagreeing- with each other.  The only thing consistently different between any two reps of the two categories is that the HJ'er asserts that there is ample evidence to conclude that there was "some guy" - while the mythicist position does not...and further asks what, exactly, "some guy" is supposed to mean.

Haha! It's not, which is why I can't understand why some people get so worked up about it.

I'm trying to figure out what would cause such friction when the positions are so similar.

Also, it's kind of funny Lame ass Jesus.

In this thread?  It comes from certain posters inability to admit that they don't know the mythicist position, can't argue against it,  can't argue  HJ competently, and have made too much of an ass of themselves to change course now.  In the general, it comes from fairy tale believers who go batshit when you ask them to give you evidence for -anything- in their stories. Professionally? Tradition, rivalry, implications of entrenched incompetence?

[TheMessiah]

I haven't seen any of these examples of illogic, issue obfuscation, or data ignorings, what I've seen is theistic bluster and repeated appeals to authority without regards to the bias of the claimed authorities as a group..

The ease of research of today will destroy your precious "consensus" of dishonest christians masquerading as "historians." The percentage of superstitious nonsense believers is dropping but is still the majority. When the enlightenment continues and the social pear pressure of the christians is broken, then the freedom to read the evidence will decide what we do and do not have sufficient reason to claim as historical.

Do you know what theism means? It doesn't appear you do. Anyway, it's irrelevant to any of the arguments made in the OP or elsewhere in this thread. And if by "ease of research," you mean  looking up and regurgitating what some amateur mythicist (like D.M. Murdock) writes on the internet, you might want to look into the volumes of textbooks that have been written by, you know, both secular and religious academics---unless you think the latter are unqualified to make an argument, in which case you might want to look up the definition of ad hominem after you've finished grasping what theism means.

As for your claim that there is a conspiracy barring mythicists from intelligentsia (strange, I swear I've heard other people make that appeal to pity before too), you do realize mythicism is not new, right? It was once held by some respectable scholars... in the 19th century. Yeah, you're a little slow to this game in more ways than one.

I have to admit, the conspiracy theories I haven't seen before until now. They did give a good laugh.

[The Grand Nudger]

Apparently you didn't know that there -was- a debate either......as the quoted bit above relates.  So that's two things you've learned from that....right?  Now you know that the question is, -and has been- whether or not the experts were right, for over 100 years.  There was hardly a need for christ myth in the past century..imo, since the HJ crowd has been whittling away the myth of christ inherent to -their own position- of old.   They -were- the mythicists, for a very long time.  Now they find themselves playing brinksmanship with what remains.

[robvalue]

Thanks for the explanation Rhythm

I don't know what exactly I'd call myself, but I certainly don't see the mythicisit position as absurd. That's an interesting point that there may not have been anyone who was being worshiped at that time for the reasons stated, even if someone loosely resembling the character did exist in some capacity. I mean, there could be a Jesus who wandered around claiming to be the son of god, no one listened except maybe a couple of people, and eventually he got so annoying he got executed. Sure, it correlates with the story a little bit, but only by coincidence.

The thing I find interesting is all the forgeries in the following centuries. Those who wanted to perpetuate the belief obviously felt the evidence was weak even then, to have to resort to that.