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

[GrandizerII]

I've read in mythicist writings that possibly in the very early church, Jesus was not supposed to be an actual human being who walked the earth, but was rather thought to exist in a spiritual realm. Does anyone recall details of how that worked? Anyways, maybe the Christians could simply go back to such an "abstract" notion of Jesus.

Not a plausible theory. The Pauline Epistles several times imply Jesus walking the earth at one point in time.

Keep in mind most mythicist views are based on not applying good critical thinking skills and favoring ad hoc over parsimonious interpretations.

[Redbeard The Pink]

I've read in mythicist writings that possibly in the very early church, Jesus was not supposed to be an actual human being who walked the earth, but was rather thought to exist in a spiritual realm. Does anyone recall details of how that worked? Anyways, maybe the Christians could simply go back to such an "abstract" notion of Jesus.

Not a plausible theory. The Pauline Epistles several times imply Jesus walking the earth at one point in time.

Keep in mind most mythicist views are based on not applying good critical thinking skills and favoring ad hoc over parsimonious interpretations.

And most non-mythicist views are based on appeals to authority, pre-supposition, and special pleading.


There are only about 6 Pauline Epistles that are not hotly disputed, and in those Epistles Paul consistently refers to the idea that his and others' knowledge of Christ comes from scripture and personal revelation. Some people will say there are references to his earthly family, but the term there is "brothers of the Lord" which is a nick-name for Christians TO THIS DAY. There are a few other passages that challenge this theory, but Carrier deals with those nicely in his talks. I'd have to look some of it up to go much further. The point is, Carrier sounds like he's interpreting historical evidence and drawing conclusions when he discusses this stuff, whereas non-mythicists just cry "There's so much EVIDENCE! Are you going to disagree with MAINSTREAM SCHOLARSHIP? You're an IDIOT!"


In my observation, this has been how ALL pro-historicists make their case (regardless of religious affiliation). They appeal to authority, they appeal to disputed texts and act as if they're only disputed by crazies, and they call names when you won't listen to their favorite historian. If they had a case as reasonable as Carrier's, they would just make it without having to resort to all that nonsense. Claims of historicity will turn an atheist into a Christ apologist faster than anything I've ever seen. It's kind of sad to watch, honestly.

[Mr.wizard]

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'd probably stop believing in God altogether. But I'd also be very confused and, due to past personal experiences, would start to question my own sanity.

So you would start to question your sanity after you found out that a all powerful, all knowing, deity in human form did not exist?

[Minimalist]

We can simply never know how much of even the so-called "authentic epistles" has been bastardized by later editors seeking to lessen the obvious difference between paul's "jesus" and the later tale concocted by the gospel bullshitters.  But this comment, re-printed by Carrier in On the Historicity..... is instructive.

As a psychologist once put it (about Paul's letter to fellow congregants in
Rome, whom he had not yet met and thus can't have shared his own stories
with):

Imagine for a moment that one of your friends writes you a twenty-page
letter passionately wanting to share her excitement about a new teacher.
This letter has only one topic, your friend's new teacher. [But] at the end
of her letter, you still do not know one thing about her teacher. Yet, Paul
presents the central figure of his theology this way . . . . It [seems] impossible
to imagine how Paul could avoid telling one story or parable of--or
fail to note one physical trait or personal quality of-Jesus.

Pg. 514

The one thing I know is that you'll never learn anything by reading that church-invented shit which they put forward as "history."  The early origins of xtianity are far more complex than the propaganda which now is trumpeted by theologians.

[Drich]

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.

---

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.

That's the thing I'm pointing out. Even in a hypotheitical I'm not willing to surrender my reasoning ability to some unnamed expert. I would like to see the evidence and decide from there. Which again I point to the impossibility of said evidence.

I did a thread like this some time ago:
http://atheistforums.org/thread-11941.html

If you want to know what I think read the OP

[Drich]

Cecelia: Have you heard of an apologist called William Lane Craig? He stated that even if he was taken back in time and was shown Jesus never existed, he would still believe in Christianity. He would assume he was being tricked.

So in other words, when realility contradicts religion, reality must be wrong. I think it's a common mantra. The narrative must be preserved at all costs; the mental effort necessary to fudge facts is less than is required to stop and actually consider you may have been wrong for a very long time.

I'm vaguely familiar with Craig.  I've never heard one of his arguments, but from what I've read about him he's the type of guy who 'wins' arguments the same way pigeons win chess games.

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.

So I'm taking this to mean you'd dismiss any such evidence that suggested, for example, that the church invented the character of Jesus entirely. 

Also there's certainly more data on others from that time period than Jesus.  Especially that are actually from around that time period.  I find the bible highly suspect.  It's just another 'expert' that has the proper motivations to convince people otherwise.

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.

Interesting.  I'm curious mostly because of how Christianity and Judaism are tied together.  I suppose Islam and other faiths are also connected to both of them as well.  Do you think that the evidence the suggested Jesus most likely didn't exist also convinced you that other religions were 'full of it' (pardon the term)?  Do you think you were less likely to believe other religions as a result? (Thus choosing Atheism because you accepted the evidence that led you to your conclusion that your religion was not telling the truth)

see the above post to pinky

[Drich]

I see a lot of empty and unsupported assertions concerning Christ and the historical paper trail surrounding him. Do you have anything to go on besides your word? You by not providing any citations or any other proof of any kinda means, that because you have access to anti Christian commentary we are supposed to simply take you at your 'expert' word. Maybe this is how it works where you are from, but for those who genuinely think for themselves you need to be able to provide some primary or secondary source material to support those otherwise empty words.

Are you so seriously ignorant of Christian scholarship that you need me to tell you when the books of the Bible were supposed to be written?  Just do a search for the words "New Testament dates written" (without the quotation marks) and you will get plenty of links to sites, many of which are run by Christians, giving you dates of composition.  You will there see that the entire New Testament was written many years after Jesus was supposed to have lived.  But since you are either an idiot or dishonest in your approach to this, here are some links for you, some of which are to sites run by religious people:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Testam...omposition

http://www.biblestudytools.com/resources...ament.html

http://www.beginningcatholic.com/when-wa...itten.html

https://carm.org/wasnt-new-testament-wri...ter-christ

Basically, all reputable scholars say that all of the books of the New Testament were written years after Jesus supposedly lived.  Even the religious ones, as you can see from a couple of the links above.  The exact dates of composition are generally not known, so there is some range commonly given, but no respectable scholar tells us that any of it was written during Jesus' lifetime.  Some, of course, try to push the dates closer to Jesus' lifetime to try to make them seem more authoritative, but most of them are not so dishonest as to try to pretend that they were actually written during Jesus' lifetime.

If you need me to tell you this, you obviously do not take Christianity very seriously.

Sorry i jumped the gun with you. I assumed you knew more. let's start over. First You do understand that Christ's ministry lasted only 3 years, in an age with out news and internet. In an age like that word tended to get around little slower (will come back to that point...) And you do also understand that in an Oral society (one's who's literacy rate was less than 2%) your modern value to the written word does not hold the same value. things like intergrity, honor, and reputation of the person relaying the story would be of the most importance (which holds true today as well in a round about way.)

So outside of the apstoles (who carried the words of Christ himself and eye witnessed everything that happened) their was no direct need to write anything down till the came to the understanding that Jesus may not return with in their life times. That left those like Theophilus, who was Theophilus? he was the man/master of St. Luke who charged him to find out and document what was going on in Jeruslem. Theophilus did not accompany Luke, many suspect he was older/well to do high ranking person of rome or maybe a priest. Either way he was well established. The book of luke if you read 1:1 forward Luke is writing to his master Theophilus about the life and ministry of Christ. He was an understudy of Paul. There are estimates that put them together as early as 40AD to and late as 60AD. I tend toward the earlier date simply because the stories would have been better known to Theophilus, and he wouldn't have sent someone to check things out.

So again, your comparing apples and oranges. You hold writtings of supreme importance, but the culture you are judgeing did not, so your 'standard' is meaningless in that time frame.

[Redbeard The Pink]

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.

---

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.

That's the thing I'm pointing out. Even in a hypotheitical I'm not willing to surrender my reasoning ability to some unnamed expert. I would like to see the evidence and decide from there. Which again I point to the impossibility of said evidence.

I did a thread like this some time ago:
http://atheistforums.org/thread-11941.html

If you want to know what I think read the OP

"My answer to your hypothetical is that I refuse to consider your hypothetical." How droll.


The hypothetical situation is that, for whatever reason, you have been successfully convinced that Jesus did not exist. That's the hypothetical. Whatever hypothetical evidence it would take, that's what you have. What that evidence actually entails is completely irrelevant to the situation because we're not asking what would convince you. We're wanting to know about you would do if you were hypothetically convinced, and your only response is to demand to know how you were hypothetically convinced. All you're doing is dodging the question by refusing to even remotely entertain the presented hypothesis.

[GrandizerII]

Not a plausible theory. The Pauline Epistles several times imply Jesus walking the earth at one point in time.

Keep in mind most mythicist views are based on not applying good critical thinking skills and favoring ad hoc over parsimonious interpretations.

And most non-mythicist views are based on appeals to authority, pre-supposition, and special pleading.


There are only about 6 Pauline Epistles that are not hotly disputed, and in those Epistles Paul consistently refers to the idea that his and others' knowledge of Christ comes from scripture and personal revelation. Some people will say there are references to his earthly family, but the term there is "brothers of the Lord" which is a nick-name for Christians TO THIS DAY. There are a few other passages that challenge this theory, but Carrier deals with those nicely in his talks. I'd have to look some of it up to go much further. The point is, Carrier sounds like he's interpreting historical evidence and drawing conclusions when he discusses this stuff, whereas non-mythicists just cry "There's so much EVIDENCE! Are you going to disagree with MAINSTREAM SCHOLARSHIP? You're an IDIOT!"


In my observation, this has been how ALL pro-historicists make their case (regardless of religious affiliation). They appeal to authority, they appeal to disputed texts and act as if they're only disputed by crazies, and they call names when you won't listen to their favorite historian. If they had a case as reasonable as Carrier's, they would just make it without having to resort to all that nonsense. Claims of historicity will turn an atheist into a Christ apologist faster than anything I've ever seen. It's kind of sad to watch, honestly.

You demonstrate my point. What you are doing is relying on ad hoc rather than on more parsimonious interpretations. Nevermind the fact that you 're also relying on strawman as well. When did I ever appeal to authority?

If you think "brother of the Lord" or "in the flesh" or "descendant of David" or "born of a woman" and so on do not indicate earthly life, that's fine. But you'll need to demonstrate that this is what Paul really meant by looking to the other stuff he may have said that elaborates on those meanings. Otherwise, all this is telling me is that such mythicist interpretations are not falsifiable.

[Redbeard The Pink]

You demonstrate my point. What you are doing is relying on ad hoc rather than on more parsimonious interpretations. Nevermind the fact that you 're also relying on strawman as well. When did I ever appeal to authority?

If you think "brother of the Lord" or "in the flesh" or "descendant of David" or "born of a woman" and so on do not indicate earthly life, that's fine. But you'll need to demonstrate that this is what Paul really meant by looking to the other stuff he may have said that elaborates on those meanings. Otherwise, all this is telling me is that such mythicist interpretations are not falsifiable.

Ah yes, thank you for reminding me. That was the other thing.

The word "born" there is likely a poor translation. The word used isn't the one usually used when they were talking about childbirth; the word there is more accurately translated as "made." "Made of the sperm of David" and "Made from a woman" are more accurate translations, again lending credence to the idea that this messiah was constructed in the heavenly realms rather than having been born on Earth. Later church scholars, working from the presupposition of a human Jesus, might have translated that as "born" rather than "made" because it made more sense for the story they knew and were trying to promote.