Intelligent Atheists: Who/What Was Jesus?

[Aoi Magi]

There was no Jesus as defined in the bible.

Yeshua, Joshua or similarly named people probably did exist during that time period, but there is almost no historical records that can identify one of them as the messiah as mentioned in the bible. There are some anecdotes and hearsay that do mention the biblical person, however those records are from unverified sources, after the lifetime of said person, and the people spreading the rumors were *not* unbiased sources.

[Reforged]

God is basically Yahweh. An old sun God.
Jesus was basically part of the PR campaign for Christianity that was the new testament. If you believe in it then you believe Jesus is part of the holy trinity. He is God, God is him. If you don't believe it then at best Jesus was a man. A man who, if accounts are remotely accurate, was the David Blaine of his day with the added bonus of having abit of an entourage. Of course the case could be made that Jesus didn't exist due to a total lack of evidence outside of religious works. For my purposes its irrelevant which, I don't really care. Although I would guess its abit of both. A man existed but what we read about him is mostly myth.

I now have a question for you; if someone was not intelligent to the point of being extremely unintelligent would they be aware of it?

[Heat]

Irrelevant in my opinion.

Jesus alone cannot make the Bible accurate.

The Bible alone cannot make the history of Jesus accurate.



As long as those two remain true, I really couldn't give a shit, because there's no point in trying to find out exactly what a person as like unless it can amount to something.

People might care for the sake of history, which I understand, but as an Atheist I would say, what would it matter?



Okay, honest opinion though, I think he existed only because I couldn't care enough to do the research, and that seems to be the general scientific consensus.

I think the stories were heavily fabricated, and 95% stolen from other previous religions, there are so many parallels to stories told centuries before that there is no possible way even half of what's claimed could be true. The parallels are so ridiculously clear-cut, and obvious, even if you took all those similar stories and changed 50% of the common traits between Jesus and [x] you STILL couldn't claim there was no similarity.

Even THEN, just take one different thing that is supposedly "parallel to Jesus" from any other ancient religion, and then combine all those traits, and you could recreate the story piece by piece. This is why I nicknamed Christianity because of it's account of Jesus "The Religion of Recycled Ideas" because at least from Jesus alone there is not an ounce of originality about it!

[miaharun]

I think Jesus was one of those people who was too good to be true. Who fought against the roman government (or whatever you call it in that time) to help innocent people.

[Anomalocaris]

Hello everyone,

I would like your honest views on who or what you think Jesus really was, with some reasonable justifications please.

I ask this because some say he was a myth, some say he existed, some say he represents a sun god, etcetera...

I am simply unsure and require answers for further discussions.

Thanks!

He was nobody.

[Alex K]

I think Jesus was one of those people who was too good to be true. Who fought against the roman government (or whatever you call it in that time) to help innocent people.

I think you confuse him with Brian...

[robvalue]

The character as written did not exist. I think that Jesus is most likely primarily a fictional construct, but the authors may have attempted to incorporate some details from an actual historical figure to lend an air of believability. Since there's no good evidence that any of the sources are primary, the authors wouldn't even have known if any historical information they intended to include about a particular person was actually accurate, nor whether they were really referencing just one person and not a corrupted amalgamation of several people.

There is also the possibility that the four gospels were not meant to be taken literally, and were actually stories. I'm undecided on this as of yet.

[ignoramus]

Here ya go...
Pick one, any one! They're all equally false.

[Homeless Nutter]

Jesus was an alien. He was sent to Earth on a mission - to turn as many humans as possible into ignorant, infantile and cowardly hippies (and not the good kind, that sell drugs), so that he could come back later with an army of flying robots, easily conquer the planet and harvest its resources, including the human population. That's why he taught people not to fight evil ("turn the other cheek"), not to think about the future ("take no thought for the morrow") and other such utter nonsense.

He used sophisticated alien technology to perform tricks, that convinced the local peasants of his godliness, caused some civil unrest, staged his death, then teleported back to his planet, in order to get his army. It's as of yet unclear, whether his plan was a failure, or whether he's still on his way over here - space travel is a b*tch.

True story.

[Alex K]

Jesus was an alien. He was sent to Earth on a mission - to turn as many humans as possible into ignorant, infantile and cowardly hippies (and not the good kind, that sell drugs), so that he could come back later with an army of flying robots, easily conquer the planet and harvest its resources, including the human population. That's why he taught people not to fight evil ("turn the other cheek"), not to think about the future ("take no thought for the morrow") and other such utter nonsense.

He used sophisticated alien technology to perform tricks, that convinced the local peasants of his godliness, caused some civil unrest, staged his death, then teleported back to his planet, in order to get his army. It's as of yet unclear, whether his plan was a failure, or whether he's still on his way over here - space travel is a b*tch.

True story.

and he even announces the apocalypse a few books later. He's behind it! D'oh!