Did Jesus exist?

[vorlon13]

Has any Christian apologist ever trotted out something like this:

Since belief in Jesus is the key to 'salvation', it's irrelevant whether Jesus existed or not.



??????????????

[robvalue]

That's a good point. Clearly it is actually irrelevant, since the myth persists regardless. Even the gospel authors couldn't know for sure, so there's no way any Christian alive today actually knows.

[The Grand Nudger]

Has any Christian apologist ever trotted out something like this:

Since belief in Jesus is the key to 'salvation', it's irrelevant whether Jesus existed or not.



??????????????

-that wouldn't be apologism, it'd just be integrity.

[Minimalist]

For some reason hanging on to the thinnest of threads that their horseshit is "real" is very important to them.  I chalk it up to a lack of imagination.

[Mudhammam]

Too simplistic?  It is clearly fiction..unless you think that jesus drove demons into pigs in actuality?  Let's get some clarification on this point...do you think that the NT narratives aren't fictional?  Fiction is diverse, and represents different views and genres.  Perhaps -you- have a simplistic view of fiction?

Seems to be so, since you also think that there was no such thing as historical fiction at -any- point in human history.  We have always told stories.  I don;t know why you're babbling about novels, now....we're not discussing a novel, are we?  

"To varying degrees, A, B, C, D, and E mix fact with fiction in their writings when they mention F."
"Therefore, there is no evidence that F existed."

That's your logic. It's... really... dumb. That's probably all that deserves to be said about it.

I haven't dismissed every word, I've only dismissed your comments..and I've told you why.  You don't think that even a smidgeon of evidence supports the mythical position?  How about the fact that -in the narrative in question-, jesus is a god with magical powers....what do you think that is....."historical"..?  Look, the absolute best you can aim for, with the jesus character, is legendary.  Even a "historical jesus" is -still- a legendary jesus.  Do you know how thin the veil between legendary and mythical is?  

Yeah... people tended to be deified and mythologized in the first century... I guess anyone who hailed the Caesars to be gods must be an unreliable source because, according to your logic, as we must not believe that any historical Caesars were gods, the ones that we are told were divine could not in fact have actually existed. Who was the historical Vespasian? Not the one who healed the blind and the lame. How many Vespasians do we have? Can we know if anything Seutonius wrote about him was true? Caligula and Nero? Hadrian's servant boy? All were claimed by their loyal followers to be gods, which is clearly fictional... therefore they must be fictional too. We are told that Plato was born with bees resting upon his lips because his words would later be so sweet... umm.. Which Plato is this again? Not the historical Plato. I guess we cannot tell the man from the myth. Herodotus and Pliny the Elder's encyclopedic volumes that historians have found immensely useful and important? Throw them out. They contain dog-headed people and magic. Therefore, they are all fiction.

That's your logic. It's... really... dumb. That's definitely all that deserves to be said about it.

They have alot in common.  Both are based on the same collections of text....and both float invalid claims and have difficulty producing evidence, but mostly they both content themselves with calling the other guy names.

You're talking about mythicists or creationists?

"I have n reason to doubt" is an excuse for your having failed to provide evidence or reason to accept.  

Sorry, I'm not in the business of healing the blind. That you've rejected the evidence without reason doesn't oblige rational people to do so... thankfully, when one observes the educated circles around the globe, we learn that they don't. It's only the uneducated, such as yourself, who seem to pride themselves on stupid theories like creationism and mythicism.

That's not -my- problem, is it?  I would have taken a valid means of inference as well, you failed to deliver on both counts.

Uh... Yeah, it kind of is your problem... since according to, well, sane, reasonable standards, the historicity of Jesus is beyond doubt.

OFC it does, but that;s not the question at hand, now is it?  You've failed to deliver historical jesus in evidence, and you've failed to deliver historical jesus in inference.

"A, B, C, D, and E include varying degrees of fiction in their writings."
"Therefore, there is no evidence that F existed."

Again, that's your logic. It's really, really dumb. That's all that...

 Get real, you say, after willfully straw manning me with your first sentence..... again.  If you can't give me a historical detail about jesus, you don't have a historical jesus. QED.  

What is this? Are you trying to be the least interesting troll here or.... what? Do you have anything else to say besides repeating this same idiotic garbage? 

What man jesus?  The details are unimportant, way to excuse yourself.  If the details are unimportant, and you do not possess them, why have you been arguing with me at all?  You leaving the embarrassing details defense and falling back to the die for a lie defense now?  We already tried that, remember?  The "general portrait of the character"..really..and you say we aren't talking about fiction.....................

The details are important... once you have learned to use reasoning skills... have examined the texts... and have used those reasoning skills to establish that there are details to be ascertained.

You're not at that stage yet, clearly.

And "the general portrait of the character" does not automatically mean a fictional character... again, B doesn't follow A.... but, we both know by this point, logic isn't your strong suit.

[vorlon13]

Has any Christian apologist ever trotted out something like this:

Since belief in Jesus is the key to 'salvation', it's irrelevant whether Jesus existed or not.



??????????????

-that wouldn't be apologism, it'd just be integrity.

or blasphemy

[Tiberius]

This poll is the most bizarrely balanced I've seen.

[Minimalist]

Thanks for reminding me that I hadn't voted.

[NaughtyButNice]

The truth is no one really knows if he existed or not. Like Dorothy in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Jesus could have been the name of someone the writers knew and they used it because it sounded good and/or was a tribute to that person.

[Cephus]

The truth is no one really knows if he existed or not. Like Dorothy in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Jesus could have been the name of someone the writers knew and they used it because it sounded good and/or was a tribute to that person.

But it still doesn't make the slightest bit of difference if there was a historical Jesus or not.  We all know that J.K. Rowling based Professor Snape on a real teacher she had named John Nettleship.  That doesn't mean that Professor Snape, the guy who swung a wand and cast spells, was real.  Even if there was some itinerant preacher named Jehoshua running around first century Jerusalem, that means fuck all to justifying the Biblical magic man.

Who the fuck cares?