EvC Forum: Choosing a faith

As I have asked many times on this site. Show us any contemporary historical evidence for a historical jesus.
The article is not an unsupported assertion. The assertion is supported throughout the article. Namely, there is no historical evidence for the jesus character. No one can prove he did not exist. That you expect such a thing, just reaffirms your inability to understand or present a fact based, logical argument. A negative can not be proven.

In the end, the historicity of Jesus isn't something even worth arguing over. I'm willing to accept that there may have been someone named Jesus who led a religious movement, even if just for the purposes of moving the discussion along. It really isn't that important of a point. For example, there is no doubt that Joseph Smith was an actual living person, but I don't see this fact convincing swaths of people to convert to Mormonism.

What it really comes down to is the claims attached to the person, not simply the existence of that person.

Good for you. I do not feel the same way.

I know you're replying to Taq, but I wasn't sure how to interpret this. Do you just mean that you don't accept that Jesus may have been a real person who led a religious movement?

My own view is that there is no way to know whether Paul based his Jesus upon a real person or a composite of real people, or just made him up out of whole cloth.

--Percy

This message is a reply to:
	Message 3825 by Theodoric, posted 09-04-2024 10:41 PM		Theodoric has replied

Replies to this message:
	Message 3827 by Theodoric, posted 09-05-2024 9:31 AM		Percy has replied

Theodoric

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From: Northwest, WI, USA

Joined: 08-15-2005

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Message 3827 of 3828 (920145)
09-05-2024 9:31 AM

Reply to: Message 3826 by Percy
09-05-2024 8:23 AM

Re: Historicity of Jesus

I do not accept that Jesus was a real person. But I do not find that insignificant. Christianity hinges on the fact that it was founded by a real person called Jesus who was executed by the Romans around 30 CE.

We need to treat this as we do all science. History needs to be investigated with a scientific vigor. Feelings of woo just don't cut it anymore. Until there is evidence for a Jesus, we can make the reasonable and factual inference that there was no Jesus of the bible. Why should we give credence to any idea that has absolute no factual evidence?
Alos looking at the Taq post. Yes, we have contemporary, historical evidence for John Smith. But not John Frum or Ned Ludd.
Pythagoras? No.
Homer? No.
The Buddha? No.
Sun Tzu? No.

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. -Christopher Hitchens

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.

If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up, why would you have to lie?

This message is a reply to:
	Message 3826 by Percy, posted 09-05-2024 8:23 AM		Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
	Message 3828 by Percy, posted 09-05-2024 11:42 AM		Theodoric has not replied

Percy

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Joined: 12-23-2000

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Message 3828 of 3828 (920160)
09-05-2024 11:42 AM

Reply to: Message 3827 by Theodoric
09-05-2024 9:31 AM

Re: Historicity of Jesus

Theodoric writes in Message 3827:

Christianity hinges on the fact that it was founded by a real person called Jesus who was executed by the Romans around 30 CE.

Yep. If the question is whether the Jesus of the gospels was a real person, then for me the answer is no.

But if the question is whether a real person lies at the core of the Jesus myth, someone who did none of the things described in the gospels but who was a religious person of some sort, then for me that is unanswerable.

--Percy