Christians - What would you do if it were discovered Jesus never existed?

[Pyrrho]

[Minimalist]

Drippy, you get a special dispensation because  stupid people can continue to believe in nonsense.  Keeps you quiet.

[Longhorn]

[Christian]
Not today Satan!! Not today!!
*covers ears*
[/Christian]

[robvalue]

Religion isn't about facts. It's about dispensing altogether with the logical part of your brain, at least while thinking about this subject.

The whole thing is already entirely unsupported nonsense. It's particularly bad regarding Jesus because without the later added forged extra ending, even the original account of Jesus did not demonstrate he had ressurected. It ends with some guy spreading a rumour that he has resurrected. Yes, I'm serious. If you're prepared to take the word of a probably fictional character, even within the context of a story written entirely on hearsay, you have taken leave of your senses.

So really, the only thing that is going to deconvert people is them making a choice to properly evaluate their beliefs. This could be in terms of how well they are supported by evidence, or by looking at the huge moral issues involved with the kind of character they are worshipping, and the way it promotes bypassing your own morality.

[dyresand]

jesus more than likely never existed but the myth was made up to control the poor more than likely.

[loganonekenobi]

I have Chritians stand strongly by their evidence of his existence. I'm curious how they can? Other than the bible can we find anything that points to this extremely important person in our world or is it all just overblown hero worship?

I know that the christian mind set wont ever change and they will stand on non proof instead of proof but still as an atheist i want to be sure that as of today there is no solid evidence of this figure.

Is there any proof that the Bible isn't just a well written historical fiction?

[Pyrrho]

Bold emphasis is added:

Religion isn't about facts. It's about dispensing altogether with the logical part of your brain, at least while thinking about this subject.

The whole thing is already entirely unsupported nonsense. It's particularly bad regarding Jesus because without the later added forged extra ending, even the original account of Jesus did not demonstrate he had ressurected. It ends with some guy spreading a rumour that he has resurrected. Yes, I'm serious. If you're prepared to take the word of a probably fictional character, even within the context of a story written entirely on hearsay, you have taken leave of your senses.

So really, the only thing that is going to deconvert people is them making a choice to properly evaluate their beliefs. This could be in terms of how well they are supported by evidence, or by looking at the huge moral issues involved with the kind of character they are worshipping, and the way it promotes bypassing your own morality.

Exactly.  If someone will not properly evaluate their beliefs, then they will be apt to believe all sorts of nonsense.  This is also why religion is corrosive of morals, as an unwillingness to subject ideas to proper scrutiny leads to nonsense in morality just like it does in ordinary matters of fact.

[downbeatplumb]

There is nothing that could convince a dedicated Christian they are wrong.

This is not a good thing.

[KUSA]

Drippy, you get a special dispensation because  stupid people can continue to believe in nonsense.  Keeps you quiet.

The fuck it does. He never shuts up.

[Redbeard The Pink]

Hypothetical here.  I'm sure some don't want to answer with anything other than "That would never happen,"  I'll get to that in a moment.

Say that some evidence surfaced that strongly suggested that Jesus never existed.  Evidence that was so strong that even many Apologetics accept it.  The Historical Jesus didn't exist, and most historians accepted that as a fact.

What would you do?

Would you convert to Judaism?
Would you ignore the evidence? (I'll assume this is your answer if you say "That would never happen")
Would you stop believing in god altogether?

I'm curious as to what people would think they would do.  Other Atheists can say what they think people would do.  Personally I think a few would convert to Judaism, and many would ignore the evidence.  I'm curious about what their logic would be behind their choice if such strong evidence surfaced?  I mean many people deny that the world is billions of years old despite all evidence suggesting otherwise.

I unlike most of you, do not like others doing my thinking for me. I don't take an expert at his word, simply because he is deemed an 'expert.' An 'expert is so because generally speaking, they make their living doing what they do, and can be swayed with the right motivation. I would ask to the 'evidence' and make my own conclusions.

I would also have a lot of questions as in:

What does the evidence of someone not existing look like?

Any testimony can be dismissed, or cancled out by contrary testimony.

The lack of records would only be valid if ALL records of that time were accounted for.

So Im logically at a loss at how one can establish how a specific indivisual in the sea of human History can be proven to never existed. At the very best all that can be said is this person existence has not been confirmed. And if we are talking about Christ, then everyone else of that time frame is also suspect, because their is more data on Him and anyone of that period.

We're talking hypothetical here, Drich. It's a hypothetical situation with a hypothetical piece of smoking-gun evidence. We've asked you to play pretend long enough to answer a question, and your answer is basically, "I don't have enough imagination to pretend that, so I can't answer the question." Nice one.

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To answer the OP, I used to be a Christian (yes, a True Christian, fuck you people), and I encountered evidence that convinced me Jesus of Nazareth most likely did not exist as a historical person, and when I did I immediately de-converted to atheism. While a lot of Christians are prone to sticking their fingers in their ears, they're not all beyond hope. I wasn't.