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Did Jesus exist?
#1
Did Jesus exist?
I think Jesus may have existed, but what they say in church are greatly exaggerated. No, he's not the son of God, and he doesn't have all these healing powers. He may of founded Christianity, but he certainly didn't do all the crap the want you to think that he did.
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#2
RE: Did Jesus exist?
Jesus may have existed in some form or another but Christ certainly didn't!
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#3
RE: Did Jesus exist?
There is no evidence to support that Jesus the son of man existed, nor that any man executed by the Romans existed. Granted, absence of evidence, is not evidence of absence. I concede that a man could have existed with which the stories are based on, but nothing to lead me to believe he had supernatural powers and rose from the dead. Such claims would require extraordinary evidence, certainly not the suspect and contradictory accounts of people who wrote the gospels as early as 4 decades after Jesus died. You need merely consider how information gets lost and twisted over time. Historical records are based on hard archeological evidence and verifiable written records, especially first hand accounts, with which nothing exists in regards to Jesus.

Furthermore, an argument can be coherently made for the myth of Jesus in a heavenly realm that was then morphed into a historical account. The writings of Paul can support such an assessment, taken into account what we do know of early Christians and the faction that believed in Jesus the man, and Jesus the heavenly being. Obviously, Jesus the man won out. Add to that the extreme similarities between Jesus and other mythical figures, I believe, though do not claim absolute knowledge, that no such figure actual existed and Jesus is based on a myth.
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." Benjamin Franklin

::Blogs:: Boston Atheism Examiner - Boston Atheists Blog | :Tongueodcast:: Boston Atheists Report
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#4
RE: Did Jesus exist?
Of course we cannot be sure that "the writings of Paul" are any more real than jesus himself. There are quite a few holes in that story.
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#5
RE: Did Jesus exist?
This Paul bloke founded Christianity. He probably invented 'Christ' too, possibly basing him loosely on a person who existed combined with parts stolen from various myths.
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#6
RE: Did Jesus exist?
Even Theophilus of Antioch makes no reference to the existance of Jesus Christ, in fact, he never heard of any messiah nor savior. The only thing that explains the supposed life of Jesus is told in the Bible, and we know that the Bible is all smoking mirrors. The only way to make sure of it, is if we get some sort of time machine to travel back to the supposed dates to see if there was a JesusChrist. Until we do that to prove even further that he never existed, the evidence still holds strong that he didn't exist.
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#7
RE: Did Jesus exist?
(July 16, 2010 at 12:33 pm)In This Mind Wrote: This Paul bloke founded Christianity. He probably invented 'Christ' too, possibly basing him loosely on a person who existed combined with parts stolen from various myths.



Maybe. Or maybe Marcion 'founded' Paul...or at least edited a bunch of letters to suit his purpose.


http://www.marcion.info/

Quote:Christians like to tell us that Marcion changed the Bible to suit his theology. However it appeared to me from the beginning that before Marcion there was no documented history of Christianity as we know it. So for example there are no reliable historical contemporary accounts of Paul, Peter, Luke, Mark or even the Jesus that we think of today. Likewise archaeological New Testament fragments have been dated starting around 190 AD, again consistent with the first New Testament being written 140 AD.

In addition Bible scholars who actually question things have come to the conclusion that some of the Pauline epistles were added later than whoever wrote the first ones. Their conclusions are consistent with Marcion's Bible being the original text.
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#8
RE: Did Jesus exist?
Yeah I was not referring to Paul to suggest that he was real and things happened totally as he said. Just that it's theological writing that points to a very different origin of Jesus.

Marcion of Sinope is an intriguing figure. He had a lot of influence on the gospel, because basically he made his own gospel, so the people who espoused the Catholic tradition were like "OH SHIT! We need our own gospel, or we're going to lose followers!" ...And they included some of what Marcion had because they wanted to tempt his followers.

History is fun!
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." Benjamin Franklin

::Blogs:: Boston Atheism Examiner - Boston Atheists Blog | :Tongueodcast:: Boston Atheists Report
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#9
RE: Did Jesus exist?
Marcion was a docetist. Of no use whatsoever to the proto-orthodox.



I agree. History is fun.
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#10
RE: Did Jesus exist?
What I find interesting in this whole discussion is what the Bible itself says.

Read 1John 4:1-3 and 2John 1:7

It seems that the alleged author John, supposedly a disciple of Jesus, felt inspired to write not one but two separate epistles railing against the "false Christians" or "anti-Christs" who denied the existence of a flesh-and-blood Jesus. Rather than appeal to obvious recent history, he admonishes the reader to reject them using the language of faith. "Believe" and "confess" the existence of a flesh-and-blood Jesus.

Reading between the lines, it would seem that the early Christians had a serious problem with heterodox Christians who thought that Jesus was a purely spiritual being. Exactly who "John" is referring to is not clear from the letters. Apologists often claim he was speaking of the docetics, early Christians who thought Jesus was just an apparition, and try to dismiss them as a small group of schismatics. Even taking this claim at face value, it does nothing to help their case. The fact that John wrote at least two separate epistles suggests that this was no small group but a serious problem. Plus, why would he rail against them with the language of faith as opposed to appeal to recent history and dismiss the docetics as crazy?

Why would the docetics arise as a movement so close to the alleged life of Jesus, at a time when those who knew him were still alive? Did Jesus not have relatives, nieces and nephews perhaps, how could have testified adequately that he was a flesh-and-blood being? Were there not neighbors who could have verified that Jesus was real enough?

The alternative is that Jesus started as a higher god, was brought down to earth in parables and then these parables were told as "true stories".

Of course, anythings possible I suppose. Maybe some of the early Christians did feel inspired to reject obvious and recent within-the-lifetime history and instead invent fantasy notions about their lord and savior that he was just an illusion all along. One Christian apologist once told me not to underestimate the stupidity of people who just believe whatever they want to. Seriously. I couldn't argue with that.

That said, if there was some wandering rabbi names Yeshua who was among many doomcriers of the time, good luck ever knowing anything about him. The only sources we have are Christian mythology. This Jesus never wrote anything down himself and neither did anyone else for at least 40 years (in reality, probably a century). The fact that his followers apparently split off into many factions about what exactly it was that he taught brings any Christian account into question.

If you want further reason to doubt the historical accuracy of the Gospel accounts, here you go:

The Jesus Timeline
Atheist Forums Hall of Shame:
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
...      -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
...       -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
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