Did Jesus Exist?

There are plenty of eye-witness accounts of the Loch Ness Monster; here is a list of roughly fifty of them.Eye-witness accounts are a very poor form of evidence, but nevertheless it seems to me there is much more evidence for the Loch Ness Monster than there is for Jesus; especially considering that many of the accounts of Jesus are second-hand.

Hi Faith - I recently had issues with similar comments made by Herepton, when he suggested that the existence of a religious leadership was evidence for God. The logical question that follows such statements as yours and his is this: what about the followers of other religions - are they evidence of the existence of their God(s) as well?If you use Christians as evidence for God, then you must also accept that the hundreds of millions of faithful Hindus are evidence that their Gods exist.Also, you brought up the importance of the time-frame: Hindiusm has been around a lot longer than Christianity - it seems to me from your logic that followers of Hinduism are stronger evidence than followers of Christianity for the existence of their respective Gods, due to the longer period of faithfulness on the part of the Hindus.Any thoughts?

Great. What evidence are we basing that upon? The followers of those Gods?I'm more concerned with the nature of using faithful followers as evidence of whatever they are worshipping than trying to prove you wrong in any way.What qualifies a body of followers to be used a evidence? Numbers? Time?Does a family of four worshipping a snail as God in their backyard serve as evidence that the snail in question is God?I'm not trying to be flippant or insulting - I just want to know how we can use followers as evidence in a practical sense.

First, I wasn't arguing a lack of evidence, I was arguing for an expansion of evidence based on the proposed criteria. That is the type of evidence that is the topic of the thread. While I understand your point that "It's a matter of belief, to be sure," I see such comments as blatantly off-topic in a thread that very specifically asked for historical evidence (it's the first line of the OP).Perhaps you should go into admin mode and give yourself a warning.

I'm genuinely confused... are you saying that the billion or so Hindus are all worshipping Gods that are actually demons? Or am I completely misreading your comments? Faith, you completely ignored the entire point of my post - I'll requote the final line of my post: Any thoughts? Perhaps comment on how we weigh numbers of followers and time followed in using followers as evidence.Thanks.

There is a serious flaw in your logic, unless you can further explain your thinking to me.You are arguing that the millions of believers now only believe because Jesus physically existed, even though not a single one ever met Him (in a non-supernatural sense)? What evidence is being used by these millions to assure them that He physically existed?And yes, there are plenty of people who follow/believe someone/something that didn't exist. One that comes to mind is the followers of Matigari, who was a wholly fictional political revolutionary created by the author Ngugi - Matigari's followers became active enough that the fictional book was banned by some governments to suppress rebellion. His followers believed that Matigari was real. They were desperate and needed a hero. A messiah.Perhaps instances such as these is why we shouldn't use followers as evidence for the person/thing they are following.

NORAD is the wing of the defense department responsible for monitoring North America for incoming enemy missles and bombers and such.Presumably the people running NORAD would be considered "intelligent." Yippee!!! "Intelligent men" have written about the existence of Santa Claus!!!All those kids in fourth grade lied!!!

Then why was your first reference to millions?: Are you arguing that Jesus came into direct physical proximity of multiple millions of people? No, a "historical figure's" existence is evidenced by historical accounts, not by faithful followers.The Matigari example that I gave you (and you failed to respond to) is a very direct example of why this is the case.

watch itThis message has been edited by AdminPhat, 01-07-2006 08:30 PM

This is exactly the point I have been trying to make since I first engaged you in this thread, and which you have continuously avoided.Why are Jesus' millions of followers over two centuries evidence for His existence 2,000 year ago, but the hundreds of thousands of followers of Matigari over a few years not evidence for Matigari's existence in the 1970s?What practical criteria are you using?

Why? We have more details on the life of, for example, Frodo Baggins than we do regarding Jesus' life - it's just in the former case we have a better handle on the nature of the authorship...

That suggestion is only one of many. In culture/time of general illiteracy and strong reliance on oral tradition and storytelling, it is quite possible that one person made it up, and later several wrote it down. Correct. So? That reasoning just suggests that an intelligent person created the character of Jesus - it doesn't signal that Jesus actually existed.

I don't know, but if Jesus was an invention, and I had to guess, it was probably a bunch of people - a character or story passed on orally can evolve quite a bit. But who potentially invented Jesus was not my point at all.You made the claim that the fact that Jesus is intelligent suggests that He was a real person. I see no logic behind that suggestion. That was my point.

So every author of a highly intelligent fictional character is a well-known great leader?I don't think so. A storyteller? Or thousands of them?I feel like few people are keeping in mind the oral tradition that would have been prevalent during Jesus' time. There simply wasn't general literacy and mass media, so forget the idea of popular authors.

Sorry Faith,I just found out who's right.It's the Hindus.Yep, the Hindus.You were apparently the one worshipping false, evil gods. Not them.Sorry to have to be the one to break it to you.